7 ms·

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.

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.

asimovDev 7mo ago
at our company we just pick the most current X1 13in Thinkpad 32/1000 for the windows preferrers.
Reason077 7mo ago
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.
- DaanDL 7mo ago
  Especially with things like: will my pencil work with this iPad.
- enraged_camel 7mo ago
  >> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. One of the first things Steve Jobs immediately did after returning to Apple in 1997 was to kill most of Apple's product line-up, which had exploded in his absence. Too bad he's not around to save them from the same over-segmentation anymore.
  - thewebguyd 7mo ago
    The goal is different. Jobs wanted to make the product spread simple to understand. Apple's current method is a pricing ladder, make it simple to spend $200+ more than you planned. MacBook Neo, $599. Great but maybe I want Touch ID & more storage, ok $699. Well at this point now it's "only" $300 to get the air which is much better. Well, now that you're already spending $1000, might as well just do the extra $500 and get the pro..." Every product lineup is designed that way. It gets you thinking "eh, what's an extra $200" and slowly moves you up until you land at the highest tier. Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to.
    - snuxoll 7mo ago
      > Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to. Don't underestimate how much of a bitch it is to maintain all the separate SKUs. This isn't the old CTO days where you had: 1 chassis, N mainboards for different CPU/GPU combinations, a bunch of SODIMM's of varying capacities, and a couple of different fixed storage drives to toss in. When any given MBP has 2 CPU/GPU options, multiple memory options, and multiple storage options, with everything being soldered to the board? Honestly, the Neo is the one product in their portable lineup that doesn't cause a massive headache for logistics. But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning.
      - mschuster91 7mo ago
        > But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning. Sure... but when looking at sales numbers, HP and Apple are tied by monthly sales volume on Amazon [1], with everyone else being widely behind them. But HP has almost 300 models, Apple much, much less - and Apple can react much, much faster because they almost directly run the production sites and mostly sell themselves, so they can produce an initial run of products and whenever a store or a region runs out of one specific variant, they just tell Foxconn to, say, instead of making a run with black casings they now make a day worth of gray casings, ship that onto a plane and that's it. HP, Dell et al? Their inventory gets distributed by an intricate web of middlemen who all need buffer. [1] https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/august-2025-best-selling-laptop-brands-on-amazon-usa-apple-reigns-in-revenue-hp-leads-in-volume-and-variety/ https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/august-2025-best-selling-...
- SllX 7mo ago
  The iPad line makes a lot more sense when you’re just shopping and realize you’re just on a price ladder. Start from the bottom and climb up picking up features along the way until you reach the point where you’ve got what you want or you’re not willing to spend more money. The Neo is either easy to recommend or rather easy to not recommend. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operating on the modern web. Others… disagree. Either way, it might entice some schools and school districts assuming they can volume discounts where 8GB is probably enough and it fills the spot in the Walmart part of the sales channel previously occupied by an 8GB RAM M1 MacBook Air Apple hadn’t sold itself in years.
  - dhosek 7mo ago
    From all the reviews, those of us who are skeptical of 8GB of RAM are very much wrong (I’m guessing it’s lingering PTSD from being stuck on underperforming systems with too little RAM that makes us buy much more RAM than we actually need). I’m inches away from buying a couple of these for my kids.
    - jrockway 7mo ago
      Back in 2000 I got the M1 Air with 8G of RAM (needed the cheapest Mac to test some arm64 stuff) and that laptop served me very well. I never felt RAM-limited. I was always expecting to run out of memory during a big Bazel build or something, but never did. It isn't the most powerful computer in the world but I never ran into any problems... so it's probably an OK compromise for most people, especially in the world where RAM is scarce because of AI datacenter buildouts.
      - jonhohle 7mo ago
        The M1 Air would have blown people’s minds in 2000. 128MB of RAM was luxurious at the time for a laptop. In 2003 I borrowed and bought several sticks for a presentation (senior thesis on 3D presentation software), and got to 1GB in my desktop and felt like I’d broken some law of physics. Shortly after I had a TiBook (PowerBook G4) that was _only_ 1-inch thick! Compared to 1.75” Dells my coworkers had, it seemed like the future. DVD drive, modem, Ethernet, full sized DVI port, FireWire, WiFi, Bluetooth, optical audio in and out, gigantic display with a bezel that was unrivaled for years, even among Macs. What a beast! (I know you meant 2020, but it’s fun to think about the air in 2000).
- calf 7mo ago
  It is giving me choice paralysis, last week I made a mental graph of the ones I wanted and went over all node pairs choose 2, now it's down to waiting for a fall M5 Mac mini paired with either: a MacBook Neo, or an iPad Air 13"; both options are very attractive for my intended usage though the latter seems higher risk since I've never used a 13 inch tablet before.
  - simondotau 7mo ago
    The iPad gives you touch interaction, hand-held operation, a higher quality (albeit smaller) display, and a more resilient operating system (albeit managed). The Neo gives you a real keyboard, a bigger screen, and unified UX/software support with your desktop computer. But are you sure you need two devices? Why not just get a MacBook Air (with the same spec as your proposed Mac mini) along with a USB-C dock accessory to connect charging/keyboard/mouse/video with a single cable? Also don't underestimate the value of having a battery in your "desktop" computer. It's a free UPS.
    - simonh 7mo ago
      Isn’t the Neo 13” as well? Also the iPad is usually closer to your eyes in use, so is effectively larger in terms of visual field.
- fl0ki 7mo ago
  I think the big difference is that if you just want to optimize for some objective, it's usually very clear how to do that from Apple's options, so there's not much research to be done. It can still be challenging to choose what's the best value when it's your own money, but at least you know what you're getting, and the quality hasn't been a concern for years.
- rafaelmn 7mo ago
  This is basically the performance of M1 with 8GB ram (with shittier USB/connectivity). I've seen developers who used the 8GB air a few years ago on a project. It would't work for me (even the 24GB air I have is swapping), but I can see this working for students without any problems. Buying this for a kid would be a no-brainer for me - especially if it was on a discount (and it's not uncommon for Apple stuff to get 10-20% discount drops at retailers). Even the USB 3.0 is enough to power an audio interface - should be good enough to run some basic DAW, a MIDI keyboard, electronic drums etc. Will probably pick it up for my son at some point to motivate him to learn to type.
- kvgr 7mo ago
  But for any real work, like coding/photo/video you just pick Pro with parameters you want and you are good. For office work you can choose air and for low level students or whatever you can have neo. You still basically know what you need, without needing to try really hard to understand it.
- throw0101d 7mo ago
  > The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Sort of, maybe (not)? First off there is the "mini", which is basically if you want a small screen / most portability. After that, the two questions you need to ask are "How much horsepower and storage do you need/want?" (plain vs Air/Pro), and then "How fancy of a screen do you want/need?" (Air vs Pro): * https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ * https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-pro-11-m5,ipad-air-11-m4,ipad-11th-a16 https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-pro-11-m5... The "mini" is a bit of a 'wild card', but otherwise it's very close to the usual good/better/best trope (plain-iPad/Air/Pro). Laptops also now fall into the trope of good/better/best with Neo/Air/Pro.
  - OJFord 7mo ago
    > Laptops also now fall into the trope of good/better/best with Neo/Air/Pro. ...until the bestest Ultra launches, as GP pointed out? (Also Air used to be 'the light one', not the standard/middling one on same spectrum.) We could say a similar thing with the Dell names above, the point is that it's confusing to work out which you need/want when there's so many, not that they don't fall in some sort of order across a line from mediocre to best.
  - butlike 7mo ago
    Do I want an iPad Air or Pro? Both seem pretty thin. Why is it called 'Air'. What am I not getting with the Air? When was the last time each product was updated, since I remember a time when different models were updated at different times (and I never updated my internal barometer if this changed)? Further, I see older versions of the iPhone on display at the apple store. Does this mean I'm potentially browsing an older version of the iPad? To be fair, there was some overlap in the Jobs apple store days (when the Santa Rosa processor dropped on the MBP and you didn't know if you were getting the older model unless you asked), but it was never this bad. You had the iPad, then the iPad 2. iPhone 4->4S->5. I don't know how the 'Air' slots in between the regular and the Pro, and I don't know if I'm seeing an older model on display. The whole thing is very confusing.
    - 7mo ago
- GuidoL 7mo ago
  Apple stopped numbering iPads with their generation so it's pretty messy compared to iPhones. I recently spent some time to decode their entire line-up (all models ever released) and made this comparison table which might clear things up a bit: https://comparisontabl.es/ipads/ https://comparisontabl.es/ipads/
gib444 7mo ago
> 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 ??
- ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
  Pro Essential is what the people in the cubes get. Pro Max Premium is what the people in the bigger cubes get. It looks like a rebrand and further segmentation of the Latitude/Precision segmentation.
- dumpsterdiver 7mo ago
  To be fair, the English language is the real victim here. While “essential” cleanly maps to “can’t go without” - it doesn’t map to “bare minimum”. For instance, let’s assume you’re surviving in the wilderness and you need to start a fire. Your fire starting kit is obviously essential, but it could also be included in a “Camper Value Pack” - but those things don’t have anything to do with each other. The kit is essential, and it was obtained in a value pack. This message brought to you by Mr. Obvious.
- simonh 7mo ago
  As against the Economy Deluxe.
- radpanda 7mo ago
  Hotel branding might be worse. Marriott has 30+ brands, each supposedly with its own identity but I can’t really see how having that many makes sense. Should I stay at the Fairfield or the AC or the Four Points or the Aloft or the Moxy or the CitizenM … how about just the Marriott?
andoando 7mo ago
And thats just this year's model.
- n6242 7mo ago
  It's last year's. I read a few weeks ago that they ditched the "Pro Premium" madness naming scheme and they're back to just XPS <size>.
  - wtallis 7mo ago
    They haven't retired or replaced most of the models under the old naming scheme, and in many cases they're still manufacturing those models.
tantalor 7mo ago
> Pro Max Premium lol
brailsafe 7mo ago
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.
- grumpyprole 7mo ago
  Yes, it will also have 5 mins of battery life when unplugged and have a power adapter the size of a shoe box. I tried a similar machine from Lenovo at work and quickly returned it.
  - cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
    The thing is, I think there's probably a niche for a workstation laptop like that, but this doesn't really check the right boxes. For all that extra bulk it ought to be extremely robust and repairable, have the best specs possible, and be equipped with the kind of killer cooling system that a thin chassis can't deliver. Then the tradeoffs might make sense.
  - p1necone 7mo ago
    My laptop is always either plugged into a dock at work, or plugged into a dock or just a power supply at home. I feel like there's an untapped market for 'same laptop, but slightly cheaper because there's no battery in it at all'. Like you say most windows laptops have such garbage battery life already that it's not practical to use them unplugged.
    - secabeen 7mo ago
      Eh, I want some battery, it's nice when you need to move rooms or someone kicks the power cable out. Even 15 minutes would be enough for a chonkster machine like this.
laffOr 7mo ago
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.
- ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
  They do. That's just the different base models. You can customize each one.
  - throwaway27448 7mo ago
    Personally I would not cluster 2/3rds of my product line under the single moniker of "dell pro"
    - fwipsy 7mo ago
      They're meant to replace vostro/latitude/precision - enterprise machines. I suspect that Dell expectes shoppers to either look at enterprise or consumer, not both.
- fzeindl 7mo ago
  My guess is that some cell in an excel sheet says that some customers bought certain models in the past and no manager at Dell has enough weight or enough courage to question that and rule to NOT release a certain model.
detourdog 7mo ago
The last time (2005) I was faced with this issue and had to buy a Dell laptop. There were also Windows license issues to consider. I was going to be doing unattended installations and the Windows licensing required the original purchase be a particular SKU or I would need to buy second Windows licenses to install over a network. Which is a whole other set of frustrations.
mikelitoris 7mo ago
They forgot to add Dell Pro Max Premium Plus to complete the word salad, what a missed opportunity. If the Dell product naming team is reading here I have a couple marketing buzzword suggestions: add “elite”, “ultra”, “platinum” or “diamond” to the mix please. Doesn’t “Dell Pro Max Elite Platinum Premium Plus” sound so much more marketable?
grumpyprole 7mo ago
That's absolutely insane.
- Aperocky 7mo ago
  The Dell part or the windows preference part?
  - grumpyprole 7mo ago
    Both :)
crooked-v 7mo ago
It's kind of hilarious that they copied the Apple model of arbitrary superlative suffixes without realizing that each should signify some specific and obvious model option(s).
bartread 7mo ago
I had a series of two XPS laptops in my last corporate job, finishing two years ago. My uncle has also had one of them that passed on to me when he died. I can't speak for the other series you mention, but the XPS series is complete garbage and should be avoided at all costs. Three for three laptops, all in theory well specced, that were all horribly flawed in various ways (WiFi flakiness, constant driver issues, crappy trackpads, mediocre keyboards), does not speak well of that model line.
herdymerzbow 7mo ago
Every time I've considered an alternative to my Mac laptop I'm confronted by this much choice (and that of other manufacturers) and I also have to deal with unknown and varying performance of keyboard, display and trackpad. One thing PC manufacturers seem to prioritise and focus on is tech specs + performance and interface is tacked on (or at least the interface designers departments in their companies aren't leading the design), when by and large most consumers of their machines focus on the interface and whether the CPU is of a certain level is likely secondary to the experience. Anyway, I keep on going back to apple every 7 years (as that's how long they typically last) simply because I can't handle the choice or the uncertainty, but I'd love to bust out and get a linux using machine next.
- nine_k 7mo ago
  The choice is really simple: it's a Thinkpad series T, with an AMD APU, the most powerful configuration you can afford :)
  - intrasight 7mo ago
    Why AMD?
    - KeplerBoy 7mo ago
      Because AMD had the better chips for the majority of the last decade. Intel has only recently caught up.
      - intrasight 7mo ago
        But they have caught up and so hence my question.
        KeplerBoy 7mo ago
        I guess because Panther lake ThinkPads won't ship until April, but definitely something to watch out for.
joshAg 7mo ago
FWIW, it's a little better on the thinkpad side, even today: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models If they want dell, though, they want dell. I'd say give them a budget and have them send you a SKU that fits :P
LiamPowell 7mo ago
Note that this is the new simplified lineup that they "cleaned up" a year or so ago
dev1ycan 7mo ago
The best part is how they don't have medium range laptops with 17-18 inch screens even though MANY offices where people work with spreadsheets use laptops...
lostlogin 7mo ago
Pro, Plus, Max - that's a nice blend of Apple names too.
nmeofthestate 7mo ago
This naming is great compared to their traditional naming. I immediately know that I need a pro max premium if I want the one that compiles stuff fast and is heavy and has the fans running full speed all the time and only technically works unplugged, like my current Dell work laptop (guessing).
Spooky23 7mo ago
When I worked for the government, we had a requirement to get a certification for every model of device Dell had on our contract. This excluded consumer devices. They had >350 SKUs, with probably millions of configurations. Apple a decade ago had like 10. Now probably 20-30 Mac configurations, and even those probably share alot of components. Honestly, I don’t understand how Dell does it.
- FireBeyond 7mo ago
  There's 8 Mac configurations for the Neo alone (4 colors by 2 storage options). The Air has 24234 (maybe not precisely, I'm not going to go through all the permutations) = 192 configurations. I'm not going to try to go through the MBP, Studio, or Pro, but realistically you're looking at a few thousand configurations, not 30.
  - Spooky23 7mo ago
    I expressed that poorly. I mean the internal components. The MacBook Neo has 2 configuations. The MacBook Pro has several, but the SOC funnels those configurations into a few paths and segments the market. You can't get a "base" MacBook Pro with 128GB of ram or a large SSD. Dell will sell whatever the components allow you to do, usually only limited by the hardware.
absynth 7mo ago
At this point, I've got no idea which one to buy. They should provide a configurator and be done with it. I want this much RAM. this CPU. this GPU. this touch screen. this size. What options? None? what if I remove touch? ok good there's 3. and so on. All that Pro Plus Premium nonsense is just too much marketing gibberish.
rpcope1 7mo ago
I really really don't understand why the f** they thought it was a good idea to do away with the Latitude and Precision lines, as at least I had some idea of what the intended purpose of the device was and what to roughly expect.
dwighttk 7mo ago
Reading that felt like an SNL sketch from the 90s
barelysapient 7mo ago
I had the same experience looking at thinkpads a few years ago. I finally just gave up and bought a macbook.
sbinnee 7mo ago
My first laptop was xps 13 released in 2016, I think. I am still using it with linux installed. It’s a solid laptop. Good display, good port selection, good keyboard, even trackpad is not bad. It survived my long graduate degrees and survived covid when I was using it full time (mostly ssh though). I swapped the battery two times and battery life is not bad with minimal linux setup. What’s surprising the most to me is that it was just 900 usd.

asimovDev 7mo ago

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

Reason077 7mo ago

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.

DaanDL 7mo ago
Especially with things like: will my pencil work with this iPad.
enraged_camel 7mo ago
>> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. One of the first things Steve Jobs immediately did after returning to Apple in 1997 was to kill most of Apple's product line-up, which had exploded in his absence. Too bad he's not around to save them from the same over-segmentation anymore.
- thewebguyd 7mo ago
  The goal is different. Jobs wanted to make the product spread simple to understand. Apple's current method is a pricing ladder, make it simple to spend $200+ more than you planned. MacBook Neo, $599. Great but maybe I want Touch ID & more storage, ok $699. Well at this point now it's "only" $300 to get the air which is much better. Well, now that you're already spending $1000, might as well just do the extra $500 and get the pro..." Every product lineup is designed that way. It gets you thinking "eh, what's an extra $200" and slowly moves you up until you land at the highest tier. Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to.
  - snuxoll 7mo ago
    > Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to. Don't underestimate how much of a bitch it is to maintain all the separate SKUs. This isn't the old CTO days where you had: 1 chassis, N mainboards for different CPU/GPU combinations, a bunch of SODIMM's of varying capacities, and a couple of different fixed storage drives to toss in. When any given MBP has 2 CPU/GPU options, multiple memory options, and multiple storage options, with everything being soldered to the board? Honestly, the Neo is the one product in their portable lineup that doesn't cause a massive headache for logistics. But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning.
    - mschuster91 7mo ago
      > But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning. Sure... but when looking at sales numbers, HP and Apple are tied by monthly sales volume on Amazon [1], with everyone else being widely behind them. But HP has almost 300 models, Apple much, much less - and Apple can react much, much faster because they almost directly run the production sites and mostly sell themselves, so they can produce an initial run of products and whenever a store or a region runs out of one specific variant, they just tell Foxconn to, say, instead of making a run with black casings they now make a day worth of gray casings, ship that onto a plane and that's it. HP, Dell et al? Their inventory gets distributed by an intricate web of middlemen who all need buffer. [1] https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/august-2025-best-selling-laptop-brands-on-amazon-usa-apple-reigns-in-revenue-hp-leads-in-volume-and-variety/ https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/august-2025-best-selling-...
SllX 7mo ago
The iPad line makes a lot more sense when you’re just shopping and realize you’re just on a price ladder. Start from the bottom and climb up picking up features along the way until you reach the point where you’ve got what you want or you’re not willing to spend more money. The Neo is either easy to recommend or rather easy to not recommend. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operating on the modern web. Others… disagree. Either way, it might entice some schools and school districts assuming they can volume discounts where 8GB is probably enough and it fills the spot in the Walmart part of the sales channel previously occupied by an 8GB RAM M1 MacBook Air Apple hadn’t sold itself in years.
- dhosek 7mo ago
  From all the reviews, those of us who are skeptical of 8GB of RAM are very much wrong (I’m guessing it’s lingering PTSD from being stuck on underperforming systems with too little RAM that makes us buy much more RAM than we actually need). I’m inches away from buying a couple of these for my kids.
  - jrockway 7mo ago
    Back in 2000 I got the M1 Air with 8G of RAM (needed the cheapest Mac to test some arm64 stuff) and that laptop served me very well. I never felt RAM-limited. I was always expecting to run out of memory during a big Bazel build or something, but never did. It isn't the most powerful computer in the world but I never ran into any problems... so it's probably an OK compromise for most people, especially in the world where RAM is scarce because of AI datacenter buildouts.
    - jonhohle 7mo ago
      The M1 Air would have blown people’s minds in 2000. 128MB of RAM was luxurious at the time for a laptop. In 2003 I borrowed and bought several sticks for a presentation (senior thesis on 3D presentation software), and got to 1GB in my desktop and felt like I’d broken some law of physics. Shortly after I had a TiBook (PowerBook G4) that was _only_ 1-inch thick! Compared to 1.75” Dells my coworkers had, it seemed like the future. DVD drive, modem, Ethernet, full sized DVI port, FireWire, WiFi, Bluetooth, optical audio in and out, gigantic display with a bezel that was unrivaled for years, even among Macs. What a beast! (I know you meant 2020, but it’s fun to think about the air in 2000).
calf 7mo ago
It is giving me choice paralysis, last week I made a mental graph of the ones I wanted and went over all node pairs choose 2, now it's down to waiting for a fall M5 Mac mini paired with either: a MacBook Neo, or an iPad Air 13"; both options are very attractive for my intended usage though the latter seems higher risk since I've never used a 13 inch tablet before.
- simondotau 7mo ago
  The iPad gives you touch interaction, hand-held operation, a higher quality (albeit smaller) display, and a more resilient operating system (albeit managed). The Neo gives you a real keyboard, a bigger screen, and unified UX/software support with your desktop computer. But are you sure you need two devices? Why not just get a MacBook Air (with the same spec as your proposed Mac mini) along with a USB-C dock accessory to connect charging/keyboard/mouse/video with a single cable? Also don't underestimate the value of having a battery in your "desktop" computer. It's a free UPS.
  - simonh 7mo ago
    Isn’t the Neo 13” as well? Also the iPad is usually closer to your eyes in use, so is effectively larger in terms of visual field.
fl0ki 7mo ago
I think the big difference is that if you just want to optimize for some objective, it's usually very clear how to do that from Apple's options, so there's not much research to be done. It can still be challenging to choose what's the best value when it's your own money, but at least you know what you're getting, and the quality hasn't been a concern for years.
rafaelmn 7mo ago
This is basically the performance of M1 with 8GB ram (with shittier USB/connectivity). I've seen developers who used the 8GB air a few years ago on a project. It would't work for me (even the 24GB air I have is swapping), but I can see this working for students without any problems. Buying this for a kid would be a no-brainer for me - especially if it was on a discount (and it's not uncommon for Apple stuff to get 10-20% discount drops at retailers). Even the USB 3.0 is enough to power an audio interface - should be good enough to run some basic DAW, a MIDI keyboard, electronic drums etc. Will probably pick it up for my son at some point to motivate him to learn to type.
kvgr 7mo ago
But for any real work, like coding/photo/video you just pick Pro with parameters you want and you are good. For office work you can choose air and for low level students or whatever you can have neo. You still basically know what you need, without needing to try really hard to understand it.
throw0101d 7mo ago
> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Sort of, maybe (not)? First off there is the "mini", which is basically if you want a small screen / most portability. After that, the two questions you need to ask are "How much horsepower and storage do you need/want?" (plain vs Air/Pro), and then "How fancy of a screen do you want/need?" (Air vs Pro): * https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/ * https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-pro-11-m5,ipad-air-11-m4,ipad-11th-a16 https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-pro-11-m5... The "mini" is a bit of a 'wild card', but otherwise it's very close to the usual good/better/best trope (plain-iPad/Air/Pro). Laptops also now fall into the trope of good/better/best with Neo/Air/Pro.
- OJFord 7mo ago
  > Laptops also now fall into the trope of good/better/best with Neo/Air/Pro. ...until the bestest Ultra launches, as GP pointed out? (Also Air used to be 'the light one', not the standard/middling one on same spectrum.) We could say a similar thing with the Dell names above, the point is that it's confusing to work out which you need/want when there's so many, not that they don't fall in some sort of order across a line from mediocre to best.
- butlike 7mo ago
  Do I want an iPad Air or Pro? Both seem pretty thin. Why is it called 'Air'. What am I not getting with the Air? When was the last time each product was updated, since I remember a time when different models were updated at different times (and I never updated my internal barometer if this changed)? Further, I see older versions of the iPhone on display at the apple store. Does this mean I'm potentially browsing an older version of the iPad? To be fair, there was some overlap in the Jobs apple store days (when the Santa Rosa processor dropped on the MBP and you didn't know if you were getting the older model unless you asked), but it was never this bad. You had the iPad, then the iPad 2. iPhone 4->4S->5. I don't know how the 'Air' slots in between the regular and the Pro, and I don't know if I'm seeing an older model on display. The whole thing is very confusing.
  - 7mo ago
GuidoL 7mo ago
Apple stopped numbering iPads with their generation so it's pretty messy compared to iPhones. I recently spent some time to decode their entire line-up (all models ever released) and made this comparison table which might clear things up a bit: https://comparisontabl.es/ipads/ https://comparisontabl.es/ipads/

gib444 7mo ago

> 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 ??

ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
Pro Essential is what the people in the cubes get. Pro Max Premium is what the people in the bigger cubes get. It looks like a rebrand and further segmentation of the Latitude/Precision segmentation.
dumpsterdiver 7mo ago
To be fair, the English language is the real victim here. While “essential” cleanly maps to “can’t go without” - it doesn’t map to “bare minimum”. For instance, let’s assume you’re surviving in the wilderness and you need to start a fire. Your fire starting kit is obviously essential, but it could also be included in a “Camper Value Pack” - but those things don’t have anything to do with each other. The kit is essential, and it was obtained in a value pack. This message brought to you by Mr. Obvious.
simonh 7mo ago
As against the Economy Deluxe.
radpanda 7mo ago
Hotel branding might be worse. Marriott has 30+ brands, each supposedly with its own identity but I can’t really see how having that many makes sense. Should I stay at the Fairfield or the AC or the Four Points or the Aloft or the Moxy or the CitizenM … how about just the Marriott?

andoando 7mo ago

And thats just this year's model.

n6242 7mo ago
It's last year's. I read a few weeks ago that they ditched the "Pro Premium" madness naming scheme and they're back to just XPS <size>.
- wtallis 7mo ago
  They haven't retired or replaced most of the models under the old naming scheme, and in many cases they're still manufacturing those models.

tantalor 7mo ago

> Pro Max Premium lol

brailsafe 7mo ago

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.

grumpyprole 7mo ago
Yes, it will also have 5 mins of battery life when unplugged and have a power adapter the size of a shoe box. I tried a similar machine from Lenovo at work and quickly returned it.
- cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
  The thing is, I think there's probably a niche for a workstation laptop like that, but this doesn't really check the right boxes. For all that extra bulk it ought to be extremely robust and repairable, have the best specs possible, and be equipped with the kind of killer cooling system that a thin chassis can't deliver. Then the tradeoffs might make sense.
- p1necone 7mo ago
  My laptop is always either plugged into a dock at work, or plugged into a dock or just a power supply at home. I feel like there's an untapped market for 'same laptop, but slightly cheaper because there's no battery in it at all'. Like you say most windows laptops have such garbage battery life already that it's not practical to use them unplugged.
  - secabeen 7mo ago
    Eh, I want some battery, it's nice when you need to move rooms or someone kicks the power cable out. Even 15 minutes would be enough for a chonkster machine like this.

laffOr 7mo ago

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.

ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
They do. That's just the different base models. You can customize each one.
- throwaway27448 7mo ago
  Personally I would not cluster 2/3rds of my product line under the single moniker of "dell pro"
  - fwipsy 7mo ago
    They're meant to replace vostro/latitude/precision - enterprise machines. I suspect that Dell expectes shoppers to either look at enterprise or consumer, not both.
fzeindl 7mo ago
My guess is that some cell in an excel sheet says that some customers bought certain models in the past and no manager at Dell has enough weight or enough courage to question that and rule to NOT release a certain model.

detourdog 7mo ago

The last time (2005) I was faced with this issue and had to buy a Dell laptop. There were also Windows license issues to consider. I was going to be doing unattended installations and the Windows licensing required the original purchase be a particular SKU or I would need to buy second Windows licenses to install over a network. Which is a whole other set of frustrations.

mikelitoris 7mo ago

They forgot to add Dell Pro Max Premium Plus to complete the word salad, what a missed opportunity. If the Dell product naming team is reading here I have a couple marketing buzzword suggestions: add “elite”, “ultra”, “platinum” or “diamond” to the mix please. Doesn’t “Dell Pro Max Elite Platinum Premium Plus” sound so much more marketable?

grumpyprole 7mo ago

That's absolutely insane.

Aperocky 7mo ago
The Dell part or the windows preference part?
- grumpyprole 7mo ago
  Both :)

crooked-v 7mo ago

It's kind of hilarious that they copied the Apple model of arbitrary superlative suffixes without realizing that each should signify some specific and obvious model option(s).

bartread 7mo ago

I had a series of two XPS laptops in my last corporate job, finishing two years ago. My uncle has also had one of them that passed on to me when he died. I can't speak for the other series you mention, but the XPS series is complete garbage and should be avoided at all costs. Three for three laptops, all in theory well specced, that were all horribly flawed in various ways (WiFi flakiness, constant driver issues, crappy trackpads, mediocre keyboards), does not speak well of that model line.

herdymerzbow 7mo ago

Every time I've considered an alternative to my Mac laptop I'm confronted by this much choice (and that of other manufacturers) and I also have to deal with unknown and varying performance of keyboard, display and trackpad. One thing PC manufacturers seem to prioritise and focus on is tech specs + performance and interface is tacked on (or at least the interface designers departments in their companies aren't leading the design), when by and large most consumers of their machines focus on the interface and whether the CPU is of a certain level is likely secondary to the experience. Anyway, I keep on going back to apple every 7 years (as that's how long they typically last) simply because I can't handle the choice or the uncertainty, but I'd love to bust out and get a linux using machine next.

nine_k 7mo ago
The choice is really simple: it's a Thinkpad series T, with an AMD APU, the most powerful configuration you can afford :)
- intrasight 7mo ago
  Why AMD?
  - KeplerBoy 7mo ago
    Because AMD had the better chips for the majority of the last decade. Intel has only recently caught up.
    - intrasight 7mo ago
      But they have caught up and so hence my question.
      - KeplerBoy 7mo ago
        I guess because Panther lake ThinkPads won't ship until April, but definitely something to watch out for.

joshAg 7mo ago

FWIW, it's a little better on the thinkpad side, even today: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models If they want dell, though, they want dell. I'd say give them a budget and have them send you a SKU that fits :P

LiamPowell 7mo ago

Note that this is the new simplified lineup that they "cleaned up" a year or so ago

dev1ycan 7mo ago

The best part is how they don't have medium range laptops with 17-18 inch screens even though MANY offices where people work with spreadsheets use laptops...

lostlogin 7mo ago

Pro, Plus, Max - that's a nice blend of Apple names too.

nmeofthestate 7mo ago

This naming is great compared to their traditional naming. I immediately know that I need a pro max premium if I want the one that compiles stuff fast and is heavy and has the fans running full speed all the time and only technically works unplugged, like my current Dell work laptop (guessing).

Spooky23 7mo ago

When I worked for the government, we had a requirement to get a certification for every model of device Dell had on our contract. This excluded consumer devices. They had >350 SKUs, with probably millions of configurations. Apple a decade ago had like 10. Now probably 20-30 Mac configurations, and even those probably share alot of components. Honestly, I don’t understand how Dell does it.

FireBeyond 7mo ago
There's 8 Mac configurations for the Neo alone (4 colors by 2 storage options). The Air has 24234 (maybe not precisely, I'm not going to go through all the permutations) = 192 configurations. I'm not going to try to go through the MBP, Studio, or Pro, but realistically you're looking at a few thousand configurations, not 30.
- Spooky23 7mo ago
  I expressed that poorly. I mean the internal components. The MacBook Neo has 2 configuations. The MacBook Pro has several, but the SOC funnels those configurations into a few paths and segments the market. You can't get a "base" MacBook Pro with 128GB of ram or a large SSD. Dell will sell whatever the components allow you to do, usually only limited by the hardware.

absynth 7mo ago

At this point, I've got no idea which one to buy. They should provide a configurator and be done with it. I want this much RAM. this CPU. this GPU. this touch screen. this size. What options? None? what if I remove touch? ok good there's 3. and so on. All that Pro Plus Premium nonsense is just too much marketing gibberish.

rpcope1 7mo ago

I really really don't understand why the f** they thought it was a good idea to do away with the Latitude and Precision lines, as at least I had some idea of what the intended purpose of the device was and what to roughly expect.

dwighttk 7mo ago

Reading that felt like an SNL sketch from the 90s

barelysapient 7mo ago

I had the same experience looking at thinkpads a few years ago. I finally just gave up and bought a macbook.

sbinnee 7mo ago

My first laptop was xps 13 released in 2016, I think. I am still using it with linux installed. It’s a solid laptop. Good display, good port selection, good keyboard, even trackpad is not bad. It survived my long graduate degrees and survived covid when I was using it full time (mostly ssh though). I swapped the battery two times and battery life is not bad with minimal linux setup. What’s surprising the most to me is that it was just 900 usd.