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cannolicannontoday at 6:56 PM7 repliesview on HN

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup:

- Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants)

- Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants)

- Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Essential (with 14 and 15 inch variants)

- Dell Pro (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Plus (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max Plus (with 14, 16, and 18 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

It's maddening trying to sift through the differences at this level. Then when you select a model, there can upwards of 8 different pre-built options to review.


Replies

laffOrtoday at 9:05 PM

I never understood why they didn't use the Apple "UI". Where Apple presents fewer models (say N models), and when you select one, each is configurable for screen size/RAM/CPU/whatever (say K picks), yielding N*K possibilities, many Windows laptop sellers present a list of N*K SKUs where you need to triple check what the difference between SKU A and B.

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Reason077today at 7:07 PM

Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction.

The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days.

Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.

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asimovDevtoday at 7:06 PM

at our company we just pick the most current X1 13in Thinkpad 32/1000 for the windows preferrers.

brailsafetoday at 8:58 PM

That Dell Pro Max Plus (that I legit thought might be a joke) is a big horkin laptop for ~$6k+. 3cm thick, nearly 3kg, and you can do wireframes on it, wow! A full HD screen with 500 nits brightness. What a piece of shit product comparatively speaking. I imagine someone would buy it for a niche specific engineering purpose that can only be practical on Intel Windows, but damn.

I really don't think it would fair better than a less costly M4/M5 Pro, and would probably be just an awful experience to use daily.

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gib444today at 8:00 PM

> Dell Pro Max Premium

> Dell Pro Essential

At least they have a sense of humour

Pro... Essential?! If the sold hotel rooms they'd offer a Deluxe Economy ??

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tantalortoday at 8:32 PM

> Pro Max Premium

lol

andoandotoday at 8:12 PM

And thats just this year's model.

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