Re: Dell prepares to rebrand

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, Retrograde wrote:

From the «Apple had nothing to do with it I swear» department:
Title: Dell rebrands its entire product line: XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, etc. are going away
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:41:34 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141494/dell-rebrands-its-entire-product-line-xps-inspiron-latitude-etc-are-going-away/
>
Dell has announced it’s rebranding literally its entire product line, so
mainstays like XPS, Latitude, and Inspiron are going away. They’re replacing
all of these old brands with Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, and within each
of these, there will be three tiers: Base, Plus, and Premium. Of course, the
reason is “AI”.
>
The AI PC market is quickly evolving. Silicon innovation is at its strongest
and everyone from IT decision makers to professionals and everyday users are
looking at on-device AI to help drive productivity and creativity. To make
finding the right AI PC easy for customers, we’ve introduced three simple
product categories to focus on core customer needs – Dell (designed for play,
school and work), Dell Pro (designed for professional-grade productivity) and
Dell Pro Max (designed for maximum performance). 
>
We’ve also made it easy to distinguish products within each of the new
product categories. We have a consistent approach to tiering that lets
customers pinpoint the exact device for their specific needs. Above and
beyond the starting point (Base), there’s a Plus tier that offers the most
scalable performance and a Premium tier that delivers the ultimate in
mobility and design.
↫ Kevin Terwilliger on Dell’s blog[1]
>
Setting aside the nonsensical reasoning behind the rebrand, I do actually kind
of dig the simplicity here. This is a simple, straightforward set of brand
names and tiers that pretty much anyone can understand. That being said, the
issue with Dell in particular is that once you go to their website to actually
buy one of their machines, the clarity abruptly ends and it gets confusing
fast. I hope these new brand names and tiers will untangle some of that mess to
make it easier to find what you need, but I’m skeptical.
>
My XPS 13 from 2017 is really starting to show its age, and considering how
happy I’ve been with it over the years its current Dell equivalent would be a
top contender (assuming I had the finances to do so). I wonder if the Linux
support on current Dell laptops has improved since my XPS 13 was new?
>
Links:
[1]: https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/dell-transforms-ai-pc-portfolio-for-anywhere-productivity/ (link)
>

Ages ago when I was working at Dell, and later Dell EMC, there was an internal linux fan group that tried to get as many laptops as possible to work smoothly with linux. They had a public repository hidden deep, deep inside some dell sub domain with tools and stuff.
I would be surprised if you would not be able to run linux perfectly fine on the latest and greatest XPS.
I think they even sell an XPS variety with Ubuntu from the factory.