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Dell's best laptops are hard to locate on their website

18 points by m348e912 ↗ HN
Dell makes a wide range of laptop models. The ones most consumers have heard of are the Inspiron and XPS laptops. Most think XPS are Dell's high end laptop. In reality Dell's Precision "mobile workstation" is probably the best laptop in terms of build quality and specs but you only find that model if you look under business solutions. Anyone know why that is?

11 comments

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PaulHoule
They probably believe that consumers don't want to pay for quality. Maybe if consumers saw an expensive laptop that might cause them to perceive "Dell is expensive".

There could also be issues with support. I've had a few desktop replacement laptops and they've all had some strange things about them: for instance, if you have a lot of RAM, battery life in sleep mode is not very long.

cuken
The Precision laptops are designed and marketed towards businesses and professionals (hence why they are on the business solutions section). Speaking generically; you can make a Precision match specs for an XPS but not the other way around. You're able to make a Precision laptop contain much higher specification components. The average computer user wouldn't need those high-end components so they are split into two separate lines and price points.
aborsy
How is the support in Dell precision line for Linux?

Some models can be preconfigured with Linux, so I assume the support for Linux in precision line is better than in XPS.

But this post from yesterday (mostly criticizing XPS) is discouraging:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30333956

They seem to be heavier than XPS laptops (3560 is the lightest).

daviddever23box
Call Dell; my understanding is that there are Precision models not listed for order on the website.

Satisfied Precision m5520 Anniv Ed user here (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS integration was top-notch, including Quadro graphics and calibrated 4K UHD touch panel profile). Also have matching XPS 15 with GTX graphics, FHD non-touch.

Edit: to be fully forthcoming, my daily driver is a Razer Blade 14 (2021) FHD-144 Hz, using a Ryzen 5900HX processor, with an aftermarket Intel AX210 WiFi 6e card. I seem to collect laptops like some folks collect cats....

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shrikant
Yeah I agree. Roughly a decade or so back, the Vostro line was the best Linux-friendly Dell you could get without an OS, and it was buried under a maze of navigation.

A friend who worked at Dell had to look up the SKU link on some internal system and send it to me.

warrenm
Dell's laptops are very easy to find

That they market the Precision line towards business users and the XPS towards consumers is a marketing choice

Want a Precision machine? Buy one

Want an XPS? Buy that

aborsy
Precision build seems to be better.
warrenm
OK, and?

They're findable in under 10 seconds on the main page

OP's claim that they're "hard to locate" is false :)

kevincox
This is pretty standard. I always found it confusing that when looking for a laptop I needed to pick between "Buisness" and "Consumer" and in the end search both categories. Just show me the specs!

I want to just say "Show me all laptops that have a screen between X and Y size, can be configured with at least N GiB of RAM and ...". But instead you have to basically find all of the different lists of laptops on the site and go through one-by-one.

Koshkin
What is hard to find is in fact a 15in laptop without that terrible wide keyboard.