Dell rebrands its entire product line: XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, etc. are going away

Dell has announced it’s rebranding literally its entire product line, so mainstays like XPS, Latitude, and Inspiron are going away. They’re replacing all of these old brands with Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, and within each of these, there will be three tiers: Base, Plus, and Premium. Of course, the reason is “AI”.

The AI PC market is quickly evolving. Silicon innovation is at its strongest and everyone from IT decision makers to professionals and everyday users are looking at on-device AI to help drive productivity and creativity. To make finding the right AI PC easy for customers, we’ve introduced three simple product categories to focus on core customer needs – Dell (designed for play, school and work), Dell Pro (designed for professional-grade productivity) and Dell Pro Max (designed for maximum performance). 

We’ve also made it easy to distinguish products within each of the new product categories. We have a consistent approach to tiering that lets customers pinpoint the exact device for their specific needs. Above and beyond the starting point (Base), there’s a Plus tier that offers the most scalable performance and a Premium tier that delivers the ultimate in mobility and design.
↫ Kevin Terwilliger on Dell’s blog

Setting aside the nonsensical reasoning behind the rebrand, I do actually kind of dig the simplicity here. This is a simple, straightforward set of brand names and tiers that pretty much anyone can understand. That being said, the issue with Dell in particular is that once you go to their website to actually buy one of their machines, the clarity abruptly ends and it gets confusing fast. I hope these new brand names and tiers will untangle some of that mess to make it easier to find what you need, but I’m skeptical.

My XPS 13 from 2017 is really starting to show its age, and considering how happy I’ve been with it over the years its current Dell equivalent would be a top contender (assuming I had the finances to do so). I wonder if the Linux support on current Dell laptops has improved since my XPS 13 was new?