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

[AL123]

22 hours ago, Easa said:

 

 

 

 

As usual, Dell completely screws up the display choices - they should look at the possibilities HP is offering. The DreamColor panels on the Fury series are amazing. I must say that the current offering on the Pro Max Plus 18" is something that I am absolutely fine with, as the 2560x1600 is my go-to resolution in laptops, but I get your feeling. And as for the flagship model, yes. I do not like the aesthetics and I am an avid hater of the naming scheme, but otherwise, it is the first Dell laptop since M6800 that has caught my attention.

 

Oh, and I also have to mention that I just received a price offerings from both Lenovo and Dell. Funny thing, the Pro Max Plus 18" configured with RTX4000 (other specs are the same) has the same price as P16 Gen3 configured with RTX3000 + of course the significantly reduced power budget.  

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. 

[Easa]

I have receivIed a price offer from my sales rep, specced exactly as I have requested:

The OEM drives I do not care for, taking the Gen5 1TB as a base for the OS (for 100% compatibility and firmware updates) other than that I will fill the remaining slots with Samsung 990 PRO´s. I dont know about prices elsewhere in EU when going through sales rep, but this is priced roughly at €3900 (non-VAT), which seems like a very good price, considering that for this money you can usually get something with RTX3000, no WWAN, basic battery and Gen4 drive. 

 

Also, Lenovo is asking me €4400 for the same configuration of P16 Gen3, and that is with 4k60 screen, which I would swap for 2560x1600 165Hz afterwards (adding more cost). Plus, their machine has a 100W lesser power budget as was mentioned previously. Have to mention that I am buying a single unit, so no bulk company purchase etc. What do you say? I guess that I am sold at this point.

[win32asmguy]

7 hours ago, Easa said:

The OEM drives I do not care for, taking the Gen5 1TB as a base for the OS (for 100% compatibility and firmware updates) other than that I will fill the remaining slots with Samsung 990 PRO´s. I dont know about prices elsewhere in EU when going through sales rep, but this is priced roughly at €3900 (non-VAT), which seems like a very good price, considering that for this money you can usually get something with RTX3000, no WWAN, basic battery and Gen4 drive. 

 

Also, Lenovo is asking me €4400 for the same configuration of P16 Gen3, and that is with 4k60 screen, which I would swap for 2560x1600 165Hz afterwards (adding more cost). Plus, their machine has a 100W lesser power budget as was mentioned previously. Have to mention that I am buying a single unit, so no bulk company purchase etc. What do you say? I guess that I am sold at this point.

 

That a pretty good price for the config. Mine is 285HX, 1x16GB CSODIMM, 500GB Gen4 SSD, RTX 5000 Blackwell, QHD+ with 8MP camera, 3year Prosupport. It was about 5100USD before taxes. I upgraded to 2x24GB 6400 CSODIMMs and will likely get a 4TB SN8100 as a boot drive soon.

 

I will note this machine does not support regular DDR5 SODIMMs - fails to boot with an incompatible memory error. Going forward CSODIMMs should be better but right now we only have them with JEDEC timings which are not quite as good as the Kingston Fury 5600 / 6400 XMP kits.

[AL123]

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 ! 

[Tom1939]

On 9/25/2025 at 9:08 PM, Easa said:

I have receivIed a price offer from my sales rep, specced exactly as I have requested:

The OEM drives I do not care for, taking the Gen5 1TB as a base for the OS (for 100% compatibility and firmware updates) other than that I will fill the remaining slots with Samsung 990 PRO´s. I dont know about prices elsewhere in EU when going through sales rep, but this is priced roughly at €3900 (non-VAT), which seems like a very good price, considering that for this money you can usually get something with RTX3000, no WWAN, basic battery and Gen4 drive. 

 

Also, Lenovo is asking me €4400 for the same configuration of P16 Gen3, and that is with 4k60 screen, which I would swap for 2560x1600 165Hz afterwards (adding more cost). Plus, their machine has a 100W lesser power budget as was mentioned previously. Have to mention that I am buying a single unit, so no bulk company purchase etc. What do you say? I guess that I am sold at this point.

 

 

That is very nice! About the same I would get. Did you reach this sales rep from dell page or is this a country specific rep? I would order from Hungary (saw the shipping docs language 🙂 ).

[Easa]

8 hours ago, Tom1939 said:

 

 

That is very nice! About the same I would get. Did you reach this sales rep from dell page or is this a country specific rep? I would order from Hungary (saw the shipping docs language 🙂 ).

 

About the same price, or about the same config? 🙃 

 

This is a Dell AD that I have long term relationship with, ever since I bought my Precision M4800 back in 2014. Would you be ordering as a company with VAT ID? 

 

Oh and guys, I cannot find any document regarding the M.2 config on this laptop. Is it gen 5/4/4/4 or 5/5/4/4? 

[AL123]

4 hours ago, Easa said:

 

Oh and guys, I cannot find any document regarding the M.2 config on this laptop. Is it gen 5/4/4/4 or 5/5/4/4? 

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, 

[Tom1939]

2 hours ago, Easa said:

 

About the same price, or about the same config? 🙃 

 

This is a Dell AD that I have long term relationship with, ever since I bought my Precision M4800 back in 2014. Would you be ordering as a company with VAT ID? 

 

Oh and guys, I cannot find any document regarding the M.2 config on this laptop. Is it gen 5/4/4/4 or 5/5/4/4? 

Same config 🙂 Same price would be nice... No I would order as a private person (somehow I like these worsktations, I had M6600, now I have precision 7740). Is it possibe to order from him/her not being a company order? Here in Hungary normaly you would get them from a notebook store, but the configurations are very limited (we have the 3000 Gpu, no choice it that, and no mobile internet modem).

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, Tom1939 said:

Is it possibe to order from him/her not being a company order?

 

You can only buy these workstations from the Dell "business" store, but you can order as an individual without a problem, you don't have to be a business. I always have used a small business sales rep to order, not the web site, you can almost always get a better deal that way even if you are just buying a single system.

[Tom1939]

22 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

You can only buy these workstations from the Dell "business" store, but you can order as an individual without a problem, you don't have to be a business. I always have used a small business sales rep to order, not the web site, you can almost always get a better deal that way even if you are just buying a single system.

Thx! In (East) Europe too? You do have support here as next day on site repairs do work here at least since 2011 (my first precision).

[Easa]

1 hour ago, Tom1939 said:

Same config 🙂 Same price would be nice... No I would order as a private person (somehow I like these worsktations, I had M6600, now I have precision 7740). Is it possibe to order from him/her not being a company order? Here in Hungary normaly you would get them from a notebook store, but the configurations are very limited (we have the 3000 Gpu, no choice it that, and no mobile internet modem).

 

Same here in CZ/SK, the pre-configured models are probably identical across our region. Anyways, its not a problem to order even for a private person, but you would have to pay the VAT of course. Send me a PM with the config you would like and I can forward it to them, they will make an informational, non binding price offer with the same discount as I got. 

[Tom1939]

29 minutes ago, Easa said:

 

Same here in CZ/SK, the pre-configured models are probably identical across our region. Anyways, its not a problem to order even for a private person, but you would have to pay the VAT of course. Send me a PM with the config you would like and I can forward it to them, they will make an informational, non binding price offer with the same discount as I got. 

Thx a lot, sent a PM.