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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's absolutely insane.

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

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?

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.

> 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 ??

And thats just this year's model.

> Pro Max Premium

lol

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).