AL123

Looks like the one are you able to find the page with the list of fixes? I know it exists as I clicked a link to it from dell command update tool before running the update myself this morning. would have saved it but didn’t see this post until later

Just to check Re the firmware version I was prompted to update today been out for Easter holiday but was prompted to update the dock and it listed multiple fixes. Annoyingly I cannot find the link to it currently it was listed as Dell Dock WD19/WD22/HD22/WD25/SD25 Firmware update utility 01.01.13 01 the only issue I’ve seen with our users is external monitor black screen when unlocking laptop but it’s not always so hard to replicate.

Yeh not great for the enthusiasts currently. My only personal purchase in the next year is likely to be a MacBook Neo or Air for my daughter to use in school. For now for work we are adjusting what we buy but not stopping purchases I’m sure some businesses especially the smaller ones will put off refreshes, but If you have a new starter and nothing to give them then not much choice than to pay the price for what they need to do their job. Still not massive compared to the overall cost of an employee for 3-5 year lifecycle of a laptop.

Yeh I would expect Dell to wait for Nova Lake HX, as you say the arrow lake HX refresh doesn’t support VPro which is important for some business customers. HP did offer the 14th gen raptor lake refresh CPUs alongside 13th gen despite the 14th gen offering jsut minor speed bumps and no Vpro. More marketing than anything really. I’ll be interested to test the Dell Pro Precision 5/7 with panther lake, the price of the Pro Max Plus has increased so much that we won’t be giving everyone those as standard anymore. Although to be honest the lower end models have increased by a higher percentage presumably due to the RAM/ SSD/ GPU being a larger proportion of the laptop cost

My tests of the HP Fury G1i range showed they had significantly lower CPU/ GPU power limits that throttled performance much quicker and the fan noise was incredibly loud in comparison. Pro max range is clearly not without its teething troubles but for us it’s certainly the best balance of performance, fan noise. Alot more effort has gone into the cooling solution vs HP in my opinion and that’s important if you work in an office with colleagues or don’t want earbuds in all day just to block out the noise of the HP under heavy load!

Weird I thought they all came from the same China factory, we have ~ 100 units in the UK with the quick access panel including my own and not had any problems with recent orders with the quick access base. Really handy that for basic upgrades/ troubleshooting staff have just one screw to remove (first time to allow latch to be used) where as the old precision laptops really needed an ifixit kit in each office to allow them to carefully remove the base.

Yeh I think the issue is the configurator all of units we ordered have the quick access bottom door, it wasn’t easy to tell from the quotes initially. On the Uk configurator it is listed under chassis options as Dell Pro Max 18 Plus Quick Access Bottom Door

the 17.3 inch 7780 was 1920x1080 the Pro Max 18 is 18inch 16:10 2560x1600 so a decent upgrade in my eyes, I’m never too convinced by 4k on laptops as already with the pro max 18 we have to set the scaling to 125-150% to make text/ icons easy to read sat at a regular desk with monitors to each side, but certainly agree dell aren’t going great on screen choice and there should be options for those who value them . why no QHD on the Pro Max 16 Plus for instance?! we don’t have many of the Pro Max 16 Plus as most users seem to be opting for the 18 inch model but when we tested them both the CPU and GPU power limits were higher and with the newer CPUs being more efficient/ powerful heavy multi threaded tasks like CFD were I think ~ 15-20% faster even vs the 7780. Similarly for GPU compute like rendering we saw a decent uplift in performance, though most of that may be the newer Blackwell architecture as the Pro Max 16 power limit was significantly lower than the 18 IIRC ~130W vs 175W for the 18. SSD wise both models have the same as 2023 models, 3 In the 16 inch (same as 7680 performance chassis) and 4 in the Pro max 18. The big benefit is you can opt for a quick access base now so it’s easy for users to do their own upgrades without the need for an ifixit kit just or get into the laptop! The Core Ultra CPUs are also much more efficient had some comments abiut much about battery life while most the time they are on mains power when doing light office tasks, go into a meeting without worrying about the charger. we haven’t looked at Alienware as need ISV certification for various engineering software and with hundreds of users messing with any swapping of graphics isn’t likely!

I’m seeing some crazy low prices on 7680 and 7780 on our dell portal, must have a fair few to shift. they are definately a solid machine , but I will say cooling on the Pro Max 16/ 18 is another level particularly for heavy GPU workloads.

I’ve only tested with the power supply connected and 1x usb-c connector from wd19dcs , this seems to work ok as a solution to not buy the new thunderbolt 5 dock but still not ideal as you have to remembered to take the 280W usb c power supply with you everywhere.

Indeed massive improvement in the cooling/ chassis temperatures. The old 7780 got particularly hot at the top left by the 2 fans fans which worried users, nothing concerning in my use so far for me despite the higher power limits.

I did wonder that, I can’t see anything in them manual and I don’t have the technical guidebooks for these new models where I would usually check. I guess something like HW info might tell us I can’t check on the system I have with me as it’s not approved software but I will try and remember to have a look when I have access to some test units that aren’t on our domain next week,

Full YouTube review is up with comparisons to HP Zbook 18 G1i looks like the Dell is the best option if you can go for it. HP is still no slouch but Dell just did a better job on the cooling this generation. Again seems pretty similar to my real world testing results for CAD, Simulation and rendering which is reassuring I that the test laptops I had were representative of the performance !

Yep it’s worse on the base Pro Max 14 and 16 they use the same 1920x1200 45% NTSC 300 Nit screens as the Dell Pro/ Pro Plus, ludicrous for a professional system let alone a Workstation these are worse than consumer grade laptop screens from 10 years ago, colours out of the box were woeful even those using regular office applications noticed. you have to upgrade to either a touch or QHD to get even passable colours but still only 300 Nits compared to 400 on the old Precision 3000 series all cost cutting nonsense but it seems like they are listening to feedback and better will come. I get offering one cheap display option to meet a minimum price point vs HP/Lenovo but not offering good options is inexcusable. On the Fury 16/18 I only saw 16 inch FHD and 18 Inch QHD so far from HP and they seemed pretty comparable to Dell but there are some great high brightness options I’d like to try and they offer far more choice including QHD options across the range. I think someone thought oh well they wil upgrade to the Pro Max Premiun or Plus, for me there is more risk we will look to switch manufacturers hence we tried HPs latest range also. Dell won out on performance but silly decisions like this push even big customers to consider alternatives and there are some models in the HP line up such as the ZBook X G1i I was impressed by just not our core use case and so not going to start switching hundreds of users.

No worries if it helps I tried both and went for the Pro Max 18. I move between office and home office/ meetings and almost never need to use on trains etc I’d just use my phone for emails. If I neeed more portability I might have gone for the 16 but the 18 inch screen is so impressive, bright, QHD is perfect balance and for me Matte screen is best