Dell Will No Longer Make XPS Computers (arstechnica.com) 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After ditching the traditional Dell XPS laptop look in favor of the polarizing design of the XPS 13 Plus released in 2022, Dell is killing the XPS branding that has become a mainstay for people seeking a sleek, respectable, well-priced PC. This means that there won't be any more Dell XPS clamshell ultralight laptops, 2-in-1 laptops, or desktops. Dell is also killing its Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision branding, it announced today. Moving forward, Dell computers will have either just Dell branding, which Dell's announcement today described as "designed for play, school, and work," Dell Pro branding "for professional-grade productivity," or be Dell Pro Max products, which are "designed for maximum performance." Dell will release Dell and Dell Pro-branded displays, accessories, and "services," it said. The Pro Max line will feature laptops and desktop workstations with professional-grade GPU capabilities as well as a new thermal design.
Dell claims its mid-tier Pro line emphasizes durability, "withstanding three times as many hinge cycles, drops, and bumps from regular use as competitor devices." The statement is based on "internal analysis of multiple durability tests performed" on the Dell Pro 14 Plus (released today) and HP EliteBook 640 G11 laptops conducted in November. Also based on internal testing conducted in November, Dell claims its Pro PCs boost "airflow by 20 percent, making these Dell's quietest commercial laptops ever." Within each line are base models, Plus models, and Premium models. In a blog post, Kevin Terwilliger, VP and GM of commercial, consumer, and gaming PCs at Dell, explained that Plus models offer "the most scalable performance" and Premium models offer "the ultimate in mobility and design." By those naming conventions, old-time Dell users could roughly equate XPS laptops with new Dell Premium products. [...] Dell will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals (Dell acquired Alienware in 2006). The changes were made to create more "unified branding" that will make it "easier and faster to find the right PCs, accessories, and services," said Dell in a press release. It also serves to push the company's "AI PCs" onto consumers.
Dell notes that it will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals "that's been service PC gamers for nearly 30 years."
Dell claims its mid-tier Pro line emphasizes durability, "withstanding three times as many hinge cycles, drops, and bumps from regular use as competitor devices." The statement is based on "internal analysis of multiple durability tests performed" on the Dell Pro 14 Plus (released today) and HP EliteBook 640 G11 laptops conducted in November. Also based on internal testing conducted in November, Dell claims its Pro PCs boost "airflow by 20 percent, making these Dell's quietest commercial laptops ever." Within each line are base models, Plus models, and Premium models. In a blog post, Kevin Terwilliger, VP and GM of commercial, consumer, and gaming PCs at Dell, explained that Plus models offer "the most scalable performance" and Premium models offer "the ultimate in mobility and design." By those naming conventions, old-time Dell users could roughly equate XPS laptops with new Dell Premium products. [...] Dell will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals (Dell acquired Alienware in 2006). The changes were made to create more "unified branding" that will make it "easier and faster to find the right PCs, accessories, and services," said Dell in a press release. It also serves to push the company's "AI PCs" onto consumers.
Dell notes that it will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals "that's been service PC gamers for nearly 30 years."
Similar branding (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Max
This new branding seems so familiar, I wonder where I have seen this before...
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Ha, I was going to post the exact same thing.
Xxxp5 (Score:2)
Re: Xxxp5 (Score:2)
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Used vehicles are stupid expensive these days. I was shocked at what $10k can get you and not in a good way. Still some deals to be had, but definitely an eye opener.
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This country's steadfast refusal to build adequate transportation infrastructure in the cities is forcing urban dwelling people to invest in farm machinery they shouldn't need to spend money on, and is driving the costs of that farm machinery artificially high. Combine this with police still refusing to enforce laws because they were told they can't shoot people for being black anymore keeping legitimately terrible drivers on the road, reducing the supply of secondhand equipment.
It got worse the last time
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I'm even more shocked at what $40k can get you on a dealer's lot. Nothing I'd want. For that kind of money I'll have something tailored. Something from the 70s, but with an electric motor.
Dell (Score:3)
Pro Max Ultra Turbo Super Championship (Score:2)
the rainbow edition mod unlockes the overclocking (Score:3)
the rainbow edition mod unlockes the overclocking in the bios
Crappy Headline (Score:3)
If you RTFA you'll see they're killing all of their branding INCLUDING the XPS brand.
Glad to see the /. editors have started off 2025 with their usual quality by copy/pasting the clickbait headline from Ars instead of putting any effort into their job.
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If you RTFS you'll see that's covered.
Premium Pro surely means half-decent screen (Score:3)
If you pick the most expensive screen option, you get half of a decent screen resolution.
Not a single 4k screen among them.
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Microsoft Windows on High-DPI screens is blurry and unusable.
I'm not sure how MacOS does it (and does it perfectly), but Microsoft needs to get with the program and fix the Windows blurriness with High-DPI displays. It's been over a decade with this bullshit blurry Windows nonsense, already.
That's the only reason I don't buy High-DPI monitors for myself. If I were a MacOS user I would, but I'm not, so I don't.
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Not knowing exactly what your problem is I can only guess that it's perhaps non-integer scaling. Macs try to stop you from doing anything other than 200% which makes everything nice and simple. A common problem even today with "Retina" is that people buy >1080p monitors and they think this should allow them to operate in HiDPI. Windows/linux provides a 150%, macs have a "show all resolutions" and a few hacks, and in both cases you get a blurry mess which users take to forums to complain about as if it's
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Re:Premium Pro surely means half-decent screen (Score:4, Informative)
Or you can buy an ordinary 4K TV, like I did (42" for $250), and use it as a monitor. Works great!
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I would, but my laptop bag can't fit a 42".
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Yeah, you're right, you can't put a big monitor in your laptop bag. On the other hand, a 4K laptop screen (compared to a 1K screen), won't help anybody who doesn't have stellar eyesight.
Thankfully, most of us work most of the time in places where we have access to external monitors or TVs.
Poor quality all the way... (Score:2)
..."withstanding three times as many hinge cycles, drops, and bumps from regular use as competitor devices."
Has anyone noticed the obvious poor quality hardware from all [major] computer OEMs?
It's worse in the laptop category with hinges breaking left and right! It's disappointing to say the least.
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You get what you pay for. I bought a Dell Precision Mobile Workstation 7750 (their highest end laptop at the time) back in 2020. I'm still using it every day, on my lap rather than a desk or a table. I haven't had much break on it, except for the SSD and the headphone jack. I got it fixed under warranty late last year and it's still going on strong. The only thing that doesn't last is the power supply cord, causing me to replace the power supply about once a year. Fortunately, when I ordered one last time,
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You get what you pay for.
Unless it's an HP and it says Elitebook on it.
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Still using a Latitude from 2018. Hinges are fine. I've worn out one of the trackpad buttons and three of the keys on the keyboard with how much Iâ(TM)ve used it, but no issues with the hinges at all. Case is still holding up fine. My son has a slightly older Latitude also with no hinge issues. Heâ(TM)s cracked the case (been taking it to school every day for years), but it still works fine. He hasn't worn out his keyboard.
What fucing MBA idiot came up with this idea? (Score:4)
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Forget the XPS. They are getting rid of them all. Latitude, Inspiron, Precision, and XPS. They are basically changing the entire way they are defining their devices.
Still idiotic, but it's not like they are abandoning just one of their brands.
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Forget the XPS. They are getting rid of them all. Latitude, Inspiron, Precision, and XPS.
Even more stupid.
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Even more stupid.
Actually I'm in two minds about this. Dell is the brand. No one goes around talking to their friends about their "XPS". Ohh check out my new "Latitude" or anything similar. When you ask someone what laptop they have they don't say "I have an Inspiron", they say "I have a Dell" because largely people don't have a clue what the device level brands are.
It does take a bit of basic insider knowledge to understand which brand of Dell aligns with which device category. Truly stupid would be replacing them with non
Re:What fucing MBA idiot came up with this idea? (Score:5, Funny)
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Only an MBA holder could think giving up on Brand recognition like that is a smart idea.
Depends on the brand. Phone companies rebrand because their brand recognition slowly, but inevitably, becomes "Yeah, they suck."
I'm more concerned with Dell apparently laying off their entire sales division, and outsourcing it to India, to people who only send spam, and never, ever reply to inquiries asking for quotes.
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It's not just XPS, the Latitude and Precision brands also have solid reputations. Latitude for unglamorous notebooks for getting work done, and Precision for portable desktop replacements. They seem to be throwing away all the goodwill they've built around their brand names.
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It's not just XPS, the Latitude and Precision brands also have solid reputations.
Ugh. Disagree. I had to support a fleet of >100 Latitudes a few years back. I estimate that ~15-20% of them would crash if you touched the bottom of the case in the wrong way (as you might do when picking up the laptop with your left hand). After less than two years battery life on most of them was down to an hour if you were lucky. Even under light load the fans would run like jet engines, but still fail to keep the laptop from getting so hot that it was uncomfortable to hold on your lap.
These wer
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Its a school with students who will, literally, murder you so hauling power supplies
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easy! (Score:4, Funny)
I guess we'll see (Score:3)
I really liked the older XPS 13. Light, powerful, great Linux support. Smashed the screen on that, figured okay, I'll get the new one, the XPS 13 Plus. I want more RAM anyway.
It's gone downhill. Two USB C ports instead of 3. Worse touchpad (previous was clicky, this one seems to have some sort of embedded haptic device that one day just stopped working and no physical mouse button keys). Function keys and most importantly ESC key are now a touch surface instead of physical keys.
Hardware-wise it's still nice to use, but otherwise a disappointment. I'll be way more careful with picking the next one.
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Dell has managed to "innovate" it's way into way less viable products. My personal laptop has been an XPS since they first launched...until the last gen "plus" which used touch-bar function keys after even Apple realized no one likes them.
I can understand their desire to combine business and personal lines from a cost perspective, but I have to wonder if they're going to get the worst of all worlds. Business laptops cost more but are generally more durable, upgradable, and often bulkier ... all of which r
Actual reasoning ... (Score:4, Funny)
This all about saving money in lettering and fonts. Ignoring case, "Dell XPS" "Dell Latitude", "Dell Inspiron" and "Dell Precision" use 14/24 unique letters in the alphabet, while "Dell", "Dell Pro" and "Dell Max" only use 8 -- a 42% savings!
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You joke, but it's possible that's an element of it.
I remember when donut was spelled doughnut. Lose the "ugh", and you save 37.5% on the expensive sign above your door.
Save ten cents apiece on custom made badges, over several million units, and somebody's bonus is going to look tasty.
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Doughnut is still spelled that way in many countries. "Donut" is an Americanism in the end. Likely just caused by people wanting to make it quicker to spell things out. Just like drive-throughs are an American invention to keep people in their cars because getting out meant you had to dress up. (The drive-through was invented because the US Navy had a rule that sailors going off base had to b
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The transition to donut was taking place during my teen years. My theory at the time was that donut shop owners didn't like how we immature teenagers pronounced it: "dog-nuts."
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The XPS brand name also has some negative baggage associated with it. I'd imagine that many of us have bought some supposedly "premium" built Dell XPS laptops in the past only to find that they were cheap plastic garbage that fell apart in 2 years.
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The XPS brand name also has some negative baggage associated with it. I'd imagine that many of us have bought some supposedly "premium" built Dell XPS laptops in the past only to find that they were cheap plastic garbage that fell apart in 2 years.
I can't speak about the laptops, but a friend gave me a Dell XPS 420 desktop a while ago (2017 I think) and I'm still using it to run Windows 10. I don't know when he got it, but it was released on 2007 and the last BIOS update (which I installed) was in 2009. No problems except I replaced the HDD I installed with a SSD in 2024 along with a SATA3 card and USB3 card. Runs like a champ.
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Sooo... this has nothing to do with XPS? (Score:2)
Why is the headline about the XPS when Dell is abolishing all their branding? Does anyone know how to write a story anymore?
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The more I think about it, the more I remember that Dell hardware has always been 3 tiers and so they're sacrificing their branding to trick people into accidentally buying their crappy model. Brilliant move there guys! Confusing your customers will help you regain your market share!!!
Ex: laptops
Inspiron (Dell) = $cheap, trash consumer grade, crap build quality, crap performance, Chrysler Crossfire
Latitude (Dell Pro) = $average, decent business class, nothing flashy, decent hinges, solid performance, Toyo
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Where does the XPS fit in your calculus?
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It's funny that people accept that the lower price point will be poor bad. My first computer was a Dell. I was surprised to find the second drive bay was missing rails. I called Dell and was told I need to buy more parts. Of course I just made a spacer to hold it and still allow enough air flow.
The lesson I took away is that Dell was a company that sold junk.
Despite holding a grudge, I still occasionally find myself buying Dell. Buying a used tower for $50 feels okay. Buying an expensive Dell laptop would n
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Does anyone know how to write a story anymore?
Why would you believe any human being was involved in writing this? It's all AI all the way (which means you should demand independent verification that a company called Dell exists before accepting it).
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How does "abolishing all branding" mean is has "nothing to do with XPS" exactly? Does anyone know how to write a logically coherent comment anymore?
When Linux had Next Day (Score:4, Interesting)
When I started as a freelancer, I had several painful experiences with (a) using dualboot laptops that nearly worked but missing drivers or borked hardware was a you problem, and (b) Kickstarted Linux laptops and hardware failing. At 3am in a hackerspace, ahead of a deadline, someone pointing out wasting time on half-working drivers or failed motherboards was going to cost me my business.
Then, after sending the same laptop to the manufacturer a continent away three times, I spotted the XPS 13 Linux. Frankly, Dell's Next Day Support with the XPS 13 was what let us standardize our company on Linux for several years - if it wasn't around right then, I would've had to switch. With the Premium Support, it was actually a great option. Pick up the phone if there was a failed motherboard, and there would be a professional in the office the next day. The poor Premium Support people would get out their Linux manual and run through appropriate BIOS updates with you and did successfully fix things. One guy even fixed a second XPS since it was lying there.
Then we noticed things go wonky. More driver issues going unfixed, fewer updates, orders evaporating ("I can't explain why your order was cancelled, but I can transfer you to sales") and the range gradually dwindling. Harder to get countries with Next Day and eventually we gave up entirely trying to get a laptop and Next Day for a team member in California. We ended up going with a small independent Linux supplier, ironically. We even tried to convince a local shop to give us a Next Day commitment but nada. And then had hardware issues that took months to fix posting back and forward to the manufacturer.
We are now using Frameworks - on the basis that hardware can (theoretically) be replaced piecemeal with less drama - and, while I love the product, we had canonically the worst business customer experience I have ever seen with a failed component, over weeks, so gave up and now have a £2k laptop propping up books. It is consequently a company policy to keep a spare Framework to avoid customer impacts when something fundamental fails.
TL;DR - people will point out that many suppliers now provide Linux laptops, but the XPS 13 remains in my heart as the only Linux laptop with an (international) SLA that I could trust to build a business on. One lost billable day for a senior engineer already costs as much as a new laptop. For anyone wondering why more companies do not hand out Linux laptops, it says something when Dell is held up as the paragon of support contracts.
PS: strangely, we have never tried System76, for no better reason than there has always been something else in front of us, but if someone knows how we can get international business Next Day support, reply below.
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Dell Support is why I always recommend Dell laptops.
Desktops dont' really need support, but laptops often do, and the best company in the business for laptop support is Dell, hands down.
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Lenovo is good too, or was last time I called premium support. My SO's laptop was acting distinctly funny. Downloaded and ran their diagnostic tools, which are USB bootable. Filled in a support request and they came next day and replaced the motherboard on site. They didn't even care that it wasn't all original parts (3rd party flash drive upgrade), they actually have a document saying which internal parts you can replace without voiding the warranty.
Writing this on a 2019 Dell XPS (Score:3)
This is my third XPS laptop and it's by far the least impressive. The first two were two of the best computers I've ever owned. I'm not a laptop guy but they were really great, reliable machines.
This one has been fine but I've had a bunch of issues:
- the power management and hybrid sleep stuff is just crazy. You have to power it down fully before putting it in a bag because you can't rely on it staying asleep. It will sometimes just power up randomly and if in a bag will overheat. I feel lucky it hasn't burnt my house down.
- the keyboard is almost useless, many keys have stopped working. I have an almost 10 year old XPS on the shelf behind me on which the keyboard still works flawlessly (battery is dead though).
- Bluetooth doesn't work when it comes back from sleep. Needs to go back to sleep and wake up again before Bluetooth comes back.
- Performance is weirdly average for such a high spec machine - i7 with 32GB. I have an 11yo desktop with only 16GB and a much older CPU and SSD and it feels so much nicer to use.
Some of these are possibly Windows problems? Either way I'm not surprised this line is ending. It felt like they just started putting average hardware together but trying to position it as a more premium offering. By comparison the Latitude laptops we get at work seem way more solid, if not as "cool-looking".
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The sleep/hibernate mysterious wake function has been fixed for several years now. It was a Microsoft Windows problem.
I can't deny that Dell's laptop keyboards fail at an alarming rate.
I suspect it's due to heat damage when keeping a laptop running while the lid is closed. It's happened to more than two laptops I've personally owned and also more than a few I've had to RMA at a company I worked at.
Thank God they're keeping Alienware (Score:3)
Thank God they're keeping the Alienware brand alive -- otherwise we'd have nothing to laugh at when it comes to crappy gaming systems. Oh... I forgot, HP still make "gaming" systems too don't they?
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A non-techy friend asked me to suggest a computer for her to get, as hers was on its last legs. She told me what she wanted to do with it, I worked up some specs, and...
Alienware was the best price, by a long shot. It felt _really weird_ to be suggesting an Alienware as a value buy. I had only even looked there on a lark, to see how bad it'd be.
I still wouldn't get one myself, since I don't like flashy cases and I'm really picky about my hardware, but for a 'normal person', with solid specs, a good
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Alienware desktops are top-notch.
Alienware laptops, not so much. The thermal solutions in them keeps them horrifically hot to the touch. I guess that's what people want in a laptop: too hot for your lap, so you use it when placed on a desktop, a table, or a fan cooling pad anyway.
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Alienware desktops are overpriced pieces of garbage. Watch any GamersNexus review, if you don't believe me.
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God as my witness... (Score:2)
God as my witness, I could never tell the difference between Dell XPS and Dell Precision laptops.
Dell Systems (Score:2)
Dell systems are great when they have come off a 3 or 5 year company lease. That's the only time, in my opinion, that the price reflects the quality.
XPS is a laptop range (Score:2)
A laptop is NOT a PC.
It's a more functional PDA.
On a related Dell note, their server builds have been getting jankier by the year.
I won't miss it (Score:2)
Imitation (Score:2)
is the sincerest form of flattery, no?
How does Ars straight faced make an article about Dell ripping off apple's product naming scheme and not mention Apple at all?
Completely wrong (Score:2)
new marketing exec (Score:2)
Dell apparently got a new marketing exec, who has to change everything to show how smart she is.