AL123

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

Storage review have now tested both the Dell Pro Max 18 Plus and HP Z Book Fury G1i their findings seem similar to my test units https://www.storagereview.com/review/dell-pro-max-18-plus-blackwell-rtx-pro-5000-performance-to-go?amp The new Dell cooling design is innovative, taking risks but clears most of the rear of the laptops for cooling so 3 bigger fans and massive vapour chamber. Plus the third fan is primarily drawing cool air from remote vents as the vent directly above it is blocked off and it is sealed off from from the sides/ other fans by foam. I credit this with keeping the chassis much cooler vs previous gen The vents at the back are also huge, with a big gap between screen and keyboard, and a large foot to raise it off the surface it can really move some air!

Yeh it just seems to be a very brief moment then the cooking kicks in, always sounds worrying but it’s within the Intel specs and we haven’t had widespread issues with the previous generation and they generally seemed to run much hotter. I suspect it is just getting harder and harder to cool these tiny chips, small area lots of heat, I think the GPUs are bigger dies which might explain why they can sustain higher power limits but not 100%

I tested both and the OLED definately has better colours, however i am sensitive to reflections and found the glossy screen too much, but then we have a lot of glass and overhead LED lighting in our offices. I’m also not convinced by 4k on such a small screen windows apps still don’t seem to be perfect at scaling the 1920x1200 500 Nit is impressively bright and a nice matte finished which I preferred, would be nice if it were QHD like the Pro Max 18 but being slightly smaller still looks sharp enough to my eyes

I’ve been using it a bit today just installing software and in office environment I haven’t really noticed the fans, this is with it set to balanced power plan with best performance under settings I did note on the base pro max 16 the fans kicked in a lot more often when set to best performance under power settings but not noticed that on the pro max 18 so far. my only annoyance with the Pro Max 18 fans is on boot it spools up quite fast and cuts out abruptly. when joining via intune and installing updates it did this several times and made me think it was failing to boot a few times but used all my patience and waited all was fine just misleading noises! Not great for user experience I can imagine some users will be panicking and holding the power button when nothing wrong!

I think on all of these it’s pretty rediculous peaks at 105 intel limit for very short time then comes back down to more resonable levels. Seems like the fans should spool up quicker or maybe for the tiny surface area it’s just hard to cool! I can’t test on the system I have here as it’s on our domain which means only approved applications are allowed for cyber security standard compliance

I didn’t spend long enough using it to see if they ramped up and down sensibly in day to day work but certainly if you do any heavy multi threaded CPU or intense GPU workload it gets loud! The sort of loud where all your colleagues turn their heads!

On the Pro Max 18 Plus I ran Cinebench 2024 10 Min multithreaded CPU test at the same time as a real 100% GPU compute workload (rendering) as a bit of a torture test. the Ultra 9 285HX CPU hovered around 60-65W and NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell around 140-150W overall system power was around 250-260W with brief spike to over 300W really impressive although it would be nice to be able to fine tune the CPU dynamic PL1 in BIOS/ Dell software, but this seems like Dell struck a decent a balance for such an intense workload. The GPUs can take more power than the CPUs without overheating it seems Fan noise remained tolerable for me and the chassis of the laptop remained remarkably cool compared to previous generations.

the HP Fury 16 G1i is definately better looking than the Dell Pro Max 16 or 18 Plus, but the fan noise under heavy multithreaded or GPU load is very loud, distracting for others in an office environment I’d have to put noise cancellling headphones on at home it’s that bad! I guess we have to wait on the reviews of the Lenovo, while the HP Fury laptops were not as slow for more lightly threaded tasks in my limited testing there was still a difference of 5-10% depending on task. The Dell looks thing is subjective but certainly colleagues preferred the more rounded chassis of previous dells and the HP. But where you are sat in front of it that doesn’t matter. It’s also a shame dell didn’t go for a QHD panel in the Pro Max 16 Plus they seem to be making odd decisions, minimising options to simplify the bill of materials. We are in the weird situation where the base Pro Max 16 has matte 16:10 FHD with awful colours(45% NTSC) and to make it bearable you have to upgrade to QHD but that’s still only 300 Nits. Yet it’s bigger brother the Pro Max 16 Plus doesn’t have a QHD options just an ok FHD 500Nit display or 4K OLED, no QHD option which having seen a few now I am also convinced is pretty optimal at 16-18 inch. If it helps I was all set to downgrade from 17.3 inch 16:9 FHD precision 7760 to the much smaller Dell Pro Max 16 Plus, until I saw the Pro Max 18 Plus, it’s hardly any bigger ( just a bit more depth/ height for the taller 16:10 screen) but it’s so impressive sat in front of it that I went for the 18! Performance/ slightly lower fan noise than the 16 was also a factor But the main one was the screen it is bright, Low reflections and the right balance of text size at 125-150% scaling, even though I can feel my short range vision starting to deteriorate with age I can read text even at 100% scaling , just more comfortable at 125% or 150% scaling, windows recommends 150% as default. I would suggest use a stand for prolonged use as the very small bezel at the bottom of the screen makes the screen quite low, but then that is true for any laptop you should really raise it up to eye level for best ergonomics for a full days work. I already have these at work and home and certainly helps my back/ neck however might have to upgrade as the new laptop is heavier and a little thicker it makes me a nervous the one at work won’t hold don’t think it was designed for this beast of a laptop!

P16 Gen 3 is woefully underpowered just 180w power supply and 60W allowed for CPU without GPU load vs ~95-100W in the Pro Max Plus laptops. GPU is limited to 95W sustained vs 175W in the Pro Max 18 Plus! I’ve also briefly tested the fury G1i 16 and 18 also and was disappointed the 18 throttled the cpu very quickly to around 85w, also had lower GPU sustained load also (150W iirc) and was noisier. The Z Book Fury 16 G1i also throttled cpu even more, had 130W limit on GPU and really loud fans! this generation dell seem to have got it right, might be a bit chunkier but for a desktop replacement workstation it’s very good balance of size and performance in my opinion

Yeh it’s pretty decent, no real complaints and I spend 90% of the time plugged into a dock with full size keyboard anyway. Bigger upgrade than expected vs my old 7760 17inch screen, having the 18 inch screen between 2x 24 inch screens gives a lot of workspace, even though the 24 inch screens are 16:9 seems to work out ok I may be imagining things but I think I preferred the Base tier Pro Max 16 keyboard travel when I tested vs the plus laptops, will have to do a side by side test of them when I can as I may be just mistake given I tested the base pro max 16 a bit before the 16 plus. Seem unlikely that Dell would use a different Keyboard for similarly sized 16 inch laptops but who knows!

Yeh I’m sure it’s all about the bill of materials cost of having another larger keyboard for one model which is a shame. feels like they could have atleast put some better speakers to the side of this if they were going to leave all this open space, although that would have changed the look vs the 16 inch model.