Almost? They were well on that route already with the Surface line, and the latest events just hammered it in.

If they get a good small (4,5" range) Surface phone out, I'm out of the Apple game for good :)

And Dell! XPS13

I bizarrely think dell currently is making the best laptops in the market. The surface book is "sexier" and both that and the Macbook pro has better industrial design than the XPS's ... and the XPS's had some quality problems to start of with... but those screens, specs and connection to what professionals need without doing trippy things like removing USB ports has pushed them to the forefront.

If Dell just could gain a tad more "design soul" and shake some our horrible memories of the stodgy Dell of the past I think they're in a prime position ... then again the PC market is apparently shrinking so who knows. There seems to be an ever widening divergence between mainstream consumers and professionals, and the companies haven't quite figured out to react, or they have and we don't like it.

I love the xps13 since I bought one in 2015. But I hope they improved their shipping experience vastly. I was really close to try to cancel my order and just get a mac again after waiting for almost 2 months without any updates to the tracking page besides the package leaving China within a couple of days, nor any helpful answers from dell or the delivery company. Initial eta was ~21 days.

that's a bit ironic considering one of the things that made Dell successful was their manufacturing logistics :) But yeah, I think that's one of Dell's problems, it feels like an enterprise behemoth without a soul nor a good brand. It's kinda natural for the sector they normally operate it, but still

What bizarre alternate reality am I living in where a Dell is being considered an alternative to Apple hardware? Even crazier: I feel the same way.

Something bad happened to Dell corporate laptop design after 2008. Up until then, every Latitude D4xx or D6xx that I had used was rock-solid and easy to maintain and upgrade. Solid magnesium-alloy chassis and case nearly indestructible.

Around 2010 they started segmenting their product line much more and design quality fell through the floor. We briefly had some 'small business' Vostro laptops with sharp edges that hurt when you typed, and Latitude E<something> on which you couldn't open the lid without holding the base.

The old Latitude Ds just kept working...

Recently, possibly as a result of the share buy-back, it sounds like they've found their feet again and I'm willing to give the XPS or Precision a try.

I think Dell turned it around when they went private. While they were still public, I pretty much hated everything they made.

What a time to be alive!

Now that windows has bash, especially.