Dell will no longer make XPS computers

I think problem is not so much having named product lines but having too many overlapping product lines.

Having loads of random product numbers is really no better than named ranges.

If you only have 3 product lines then people will learn the names and can understand the differences when shopping.

To be replaced with "Dell," "Dell Pro", and "Dell Pro Max"... Those tiers seem oddly familiar. They also throw away what I thought, as a proud long-time Dell Precision owner, was decent branding of their different lines for various market segments. But maybe it's a good thing - most major brands seem to offer too many laptop choices.

Shopping for a laptop recently has left me, ironically, running for Mac. The experience on most windows laptop vendor sites is awful:

- Dell's sales page focuses on proprietary names like "ExpressCharge TM", "Stealth Mode", "ComfortView TM", "Cryo-Tech TM", etc, that mean nothing to me [0]. It also gave me a pop-up when I went to a specific laptop's page.

- HP has way too many categories on the landing page [1]. I mistook "Elitebook Ultra" for their top-of-the-line, but then discovered they're $3000 lightweight notebooks with Snapdragon chips and Qualcomm GPUs. The first and second laptops shown appear to have identical specs, but differ in price by $2000 [2]. Trying my luck elsewhere, going to "ProBook" gives me no less than 53 options to read and sort through [3].

- Lenovo is actually decent [4]! The product lines are named well and properly explained. The UI isn't as pretty as HP's, but it's a lot more functional.

- Asus overall [5] isn't great (more proprietary names like "SmartHinge" and aesthetic-focused product descriptions). However, the Asus ProArt site is done fairly well [6].

Almost every windows laptop feels like it's trying to sell me on everything that isn't specs. "SmartHinge". "Stealth Mode". "Youthful" aesthetics. Weird proprietary bloatware and extended warranties.

And, even on the sites that don't give me confusing marketing, I'm left to figure out whether I need Windows "Pro" or "Home", what the hell Copilot+ is (a $20/mo upsell [7] that I'm guessing the laptop will forever beg me to add, like OneDrive used to), and if I a guide to get rid of spyware, bloatware, ads, auto-installed candycrush, and other anti-consumer jabs once I actually buy the thing (like I did with Windows 10 when it first released). And then fight every month or two when it inexplicably can't find the license for Office I pay monthly, for and locks me out of all of my documents.

With a Macbook, contrarily, I know I can actually research the silicon, figure out the specs, and actually get what I ordered / expected. I also know I won't have to fight the OS nearly as much, even if Apple has its own upsell attempts, anti-consumer warranty/repair problems, etc. I never would've expected to feel that way. Especially not 10-15 years ago.

But maybe Dell's rebrand helps them move back in that direction a little.

[0]: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/scr/laptops

[1]: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cat/laptops

[2]: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/hp-elitebook-ultra-3074457...

[3]: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/vwa/laptops/brand=ProBook

[4]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/

[6]: https://www.asus.com/us/proart/laptops-home/

[7]: https://www.pcmag.com/explainers/what-is-microsoft-copilot

Haha, what an end to an era on the brand. Some 16 years ago, my parents bought me the only XPS laptop I'd own: an XPS M1330 [0]. I've still got in a closet here, but I used it for eight years or so. Six years after purchase, it looks like it was still a pretty good machine[1] and had near perfect Linux compatibility. The real wonder for me was that the bootloaders for the Power button on that laptop and the MediaDirect button were separate, so I actually had it set up so that if I hit the MediaDirect button it would go to Ubuntu and the Power button would send it to Windows!

Pretty neat trick. The only thing is that something about the way the video framebuffer was set up when you hit the MediaDirect button made the GRUB interface laggy. After that, the kernel resets everything and all is well!

This particular laptop was part of the infamous batch of bad G84 series of Nvidia graphics chips. The BGA soldering on the GPUs would crack under thermal stress, but you could reflow it with a heat gun or using the oven (crazy for a semi-plastic device!). In my case, it happened early enough that XPS support replaced my motherboard a few times. They actually met me wherever I was with the part to replace the board and the tech would do it for me at home. Overall, that was the finest customer support experience I ever had. I'm a fickle guy, though. It wasn't enough to keep me with the brand and I eventually ended up with a Macbook.

It's funny. After posting this I googled my name and XPS M1330 and found a post where I was trying to boot off the SD card. I was fascinated by this idea back then that I could just carry my OS on an SD card and then people couldn't see any of my stuff unless they had that specific SD card: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/laptops-gene... . Sadly the XPS M1330 didn't work for that, but I think I did it with a USB stick (which is unfortunately more noticeable - back then they were bulky!).

0: https://web.archive.org/web/20150811070526/https://arjie.com...

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20150811065240/https://arjie.com...

The Macbook was thinner and lighter than the Macbook Air.

> Product names make no sense.

Why should they? Every company has different priorities, and it's on you as a consumer to get familiar with each company's product line before making a purchase.

Would you prefer it if all products were named " "? So in your PSU example, "Seasonic PSU"? Of course not, you would like to have more detail than that. So how about "Seasonic PSU 800W modular"? OK, that's better, but what if other consumers are interested in different product criteria? Should we just cram them all in the product name like sellers on Amazon do? That wouldn't be right either. So the best approach then is to segment your product line according to some criteria, and give different segments arbitrary names. This way customers can know what to expect, and which segment to focus on. It's important to keep this consistent, otherwise it leads to confusion, but in general it works fine IMO. I would rather have to choose between Seasonic Prime TX, Prime PX, etc., than Seasonic Pro, Pro Max, etc.