Say goodbye to Dell’s XPS model naming conventions, and hello to something the company hopes is easier to understand, as Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max become the norm. Among others.
Have you ever wandered into a computer and electronics store and wondered just what exactly do the model numbers and names mean?
We’ve all been through it: a gadget with a seemingly nonsensical set of numbers and letters, and some marketing associated with it designed to make you think “fast” or “impressive”, but in the end is as confusing as it gets.
Not every company buys into it — Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are clearly named, as is the compact Mac Mini — but a lot of other brands do it, and force you do to some research before you spend.
If you’ve ever tried to buy a Windows computer, you probably know it all too well, and Dell is guilty of it more than most. Precision, Latitude, Vostro, and XPS are just a handful of the names you’ll have seen over time, and there are plenty of others out there.
So in an effort to make things a little easier for consumers, Dell is changing its ranges, cutting back on names and attempting to make things a little easier. Kinda sorta.
Launched at CES 2025, the idea will see Dell do away with the names and instead opt for tiers: Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, with the idea being that these will be easier for folks to understand.
For instance, a “Dell” is an every computer for work and play, a Dell Pro has more performance for professional work, and the Dell Pro Max for those who need even more grunt in workstation activities.
Of course, because things could never be that easy, there will be tiers inside those names, just to make things that little bit more complex.
Each Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max will now offer a base model, as well as a plus variant, and a premium model. For instance, the Dell XPS will effectively become the Dell Premium model, but not the Dell Pro Premium or the Dell Pro Max Premium, even though it’s one of the more premium performers of the ranges.
That’s not confusing at all, is it?
It’s a little confusing
The problem is it is just that little bit confusing.
Dell’s names were always a little all over shop — Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, XPS, Vostro, and so on and so on — but they still represented styles. XPS was the performer, while Inspiron was for everyone. Precision was workstation and Vostro business.
They could be a pain, but they typically made sense.
While we get aspects of why Dell has attempted to unify the process, switching lines to Pro and Pro Max when you have performers in the standard Dell line just makes it that little bit more confusing overall.
A new design
Alongside that name change is a new design, and it’s one that initially seems kind of ordinary.
While the Dell XPS 13 won a nod for Best Computer in 2024 here at Pickr, and the Dell XPS 14 was equally impressive in design, the new Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max models look a little plain by comparison.
Upon first glance, the design feels like a PC best interpretation of a Mac, and loses that clever sense of design we’ve seen from Dell over the years. Even the carbon fibre wrist pad of older Precision models is gone, replaced with a soft-edged metal body at a slight slant.
It’s all just a little same-same, and a surprise given how Dell has grown to be a leader by being different.
We’ll clearly need to spend more time with Dell’s new models to get properly acquainted, not just with the new naming conventions, but also the new design and hardware, but it’s a line that will also extend to desktops, too when they arrive in Australia later this year.
