Dell Pro Max 16/18 Plus (2025 model) pre-release discussion — MB16250, MB18250

[win32asmguy]

11 hours ago, MyPC8MyBrain said:

it also appears that not all 4 SSD slot are made equal,
its 3 x M.2 2280 SSD and 1 x M.2 2230 SSD 

 

All slots support a 2280 sized drive or optionally 2230 which uses a plastic bracket that makes the shorter drive a 2280 length.

 

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/dell-pro-max-mb18250-laptop/dell-pro-max-18-plus-mb18250-owners-manual/removing-the-m.2-2230-ssd?guid=guid-eef383a5-e6cb-4327-9d89-29d50997c6d1&lang=en-us

 

Funny thing about the configurator too, they now do not let you choose a 2230 drive (class 35) with RTX 2000 or higher GPUs.

[MyPC8MyBrain]

@win32asmguy interesting!
so it converts back to 2280 from 2230

[David55]

The manual and the marketing/advertising material for the Pro Max 16 Plus list an easy access/sliding bottom cover. However, there is no option to select this on the ordering page. Can anyone share whether you believe the Pro Max 16 Plus does or does not ship with the easy access/sliding bottom cover? By the way, as regards the 16, Dells new naming seems confusing: there is a Pro Max 16 Plus, as Pro Max 16, a Pro 16 Plus, and I think also a Pro 16, a 16 Premium, and a Pro Max 16 Premium). It seems that the differences between these are not a single spec such as processor series, but rather seem to involve different keyboards, case materials, and SSD slots. How is this naming a good idea? - I sincerely cannot tell.

[Aaron44126]

8 minutes ago, David55 said:

Two questions

 

...I also cannot find an option for the bottom cover on the order page, but I am pretty sure that I saw it on the 18" system page before? You should contact a sales rep. Not only can they generally get you a better price than you can get on the web site, but they sometimes have access to system configuration options that you can't get on the web site either.

 

The naming convention is truly a mess, superlative soup that does not make sense. You are right that each differently named system is a completely different system, not just an internal spec swap. I am sure that someone at Dell had a "logic" for setting it up the way that they did, but us regular people will have a hard time making sense of it. They aren't even internally consistent. Looking at the order page for the 16" system, it says "New Dell Pro Max 16 Plus" in the header at the top of the page, but the page title (that you see in the tab bar for example) says "Dell Pro Max Plus 16". Do you put the number before or after the "Plus" ...?

[AL123]

On 7/29/2025 at 11:18 PM, Aaron44126 said:

 

...I also cannot find an option for the bottom cover on the order page, but I am pretty sure that I saw it on the 18" system page before? You should contact a sales rep. Not only can they generally get you a better price than you can get on the web site, but they sometimes have access to system configuration options that you can't get on the web site either.

 

The naming convention is truly a mess, superlative soup that does not make sense. You are right that each differently named system is a completely different system, not just an internal spec swap. I am sure that someone at Dell had a "logic" for setting it up the way that they did, but us regular people will have a hard time making sense of it. They aren't even internally consistent. Looking at the order page for the 16" system, it says "New Dell Pro Max 16 Plus" in the header at the top of the page, but the page title (that you see in the tab bar for example) says "Dell Pro Max Plus 16". Do you put the number before or after the "Plus" ...?

Odd the option for the bottom cover doesn’t seem to be on the USA configurator but is on the UK under

“Chassis Options”

 

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs/dell-pro-max-18-plus-laptop/spd/dell-pro-max-mb18250-laptop/xcto_mb18250_emea?redirectTo=SOC
 

Before I noticed that the quotes I had just said “bottom door” as the chassis option which could easily be misinterpreted as having this quick access feature when in fact it did not. 
 

An extra £12 for it does increase max height slightly but only reason I can think not to have it is maybe some people don’t want easy access to drives for security.

 

but still if you have physical access to the device the security is not great! 

 

 

[win32asmguy]

If you are comparison shopping HP has the configurations up for their Zbook Fury G1i 16 and 18:

 

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345622038819&urlLangId=&quantity=1&pStoreID=hpepp

 

The 18 can be equipped with a 330W barrel charger, and notably still continues to use a tradition trackpad with buttons. Sodimms may run slower in it though as without a camm 2-dimm interposer it is limited to 4400mt per intel spec this generation without overclocking.

 

[AL123]

16 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

If you are comparison shopping HP has the configurations up for their Zbook Fury G1i 16 and 18:

 

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345622038819&urlLangId=&quantity=1&pStoreID=hpepp

 

The 18 can be equipped with a 330W barrel charger, and notably still continues to use a tradition trackpad with buttons. Sodimms may run slower in it though as without a camm 2-dimm interposer it is limited to 4400mt per intel spec this generation without overclocking.

 

Interesting that the rated TDP is the same- 16 inch 170W and 18 inch 200W but the HP Zbook Fury 18 has a 330W charger vs 280W on the Pro Max 18. Both 16 inch models seem to have the same 280W power supply 

 

i suppose if your workload hammered The CPU, GPU, multiple SSD’S 280W might be a bottleneck but would be prettt niche.

 

cooling system is also more similar to what I’ve seen in other 3 fan laptops with a much smaller third fan at the bottom I presume to cool RAM/SSD/ skin of laptop

 

the Dell innovative cooling design/ packaging does look to have allowed the 18 inch model to be considerably smaller/ lighter than the Zbook Fury 18 G1i

 

Looking forward to testing out the Dells to see how they perform