Dell Admits It Made a Huge Mistake When It Abandoned XPS

“It was obvious we needed to change,“ Jeff Clarke, Dell’s chief operating officer, told a gaggle of smirking, self-satisfied tech reporters. After a year in the grave, XPS is back as Dell’s “premium consumer” brand of laptops. Mea culpas aside, the next XPS laptop goes back to basics but still tries to keep some of the laptop’s more outlandish elements.

At last year’s CES, Dell made the eyebrow-raising decision to ax all its legacy laptop brand names and instead opt for Apple-like conventions. Instead of XPS, we were forced to comprehend the differences between a “Dell,” a “Dell Pro,” a “Dell Premium,” and a “Dell Pro Max.”

“This complicated brand we called Dell last year… was trying to cover this very large consumer space with lots of similar products,” Clarke said. Now those non-XPS products are mostly dedicated to the base consumer and entry-level laptops, “no pluses, minuses, squares, or whatever the hell else we called them.”

“We won’t chase every competitor down every rabbit hole,” he added. What that means is we probably won’t see any kind of handheld PC from Alienware, like that age-old UFO design showed off back in 2020. Just as well, Dell isn’t remodeling its entire laptop lineup for a second time in two years. The company isn’t bringing back brand names like Inspiron (which became mere “Dells) or Latitude (which transformed into “Dell Pro). According to Clarke, Dell Pro “still tests well.”

Whether or not you’re happy with your Dell Pro Premium Plus Max Crunchwrap Supreme, the XPS line now includes 14- and 16-inch models sporting up to an Intel Core Ultra X7 or X9 chip for more GPU capabilities. The revised XPS also includes the brand name stenciled on the laptop lid. Otherwise, the notebook is getting back to basics. The 14-inch model starts at 3 pounds in weight and is barely more than 0.5 inches thick. Plus, it contains a 2.8K OLED screen as an option.

The new versions of XPS laptops no longer have the glowing “touch function” row keys of recent editions that proved terrible for the sake of accessibility. Dell has maintained the seamless trackpad and squared keyboard keys that help make the XPS laptops visually unique. If you’re not a big fan of keyboards with no space between keys, you probably won’t enjoy the XPS’ big reunion tour.

Whether or not this is Dell playing 5D chess and creating demand for XPS by taking it away, the next Dell XPS 14 starts at $1,650, while the 16-inch model will demand $1,850 starting Jan. 6. The company promises there will be more entry-level configurations available in February. A new XPS 13 will come later this year.

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