Dell Precision
Ranked 3 of 9 workstations by recommenders
People recommend Dell Precision workstations for build quality, longevity and Linux support; critics cite heat, power draw and sleep problems.
People recommend Dell Precision workstations for build quality, longevity and Linux support; critics cite heat, power draw and sleep problems.
35 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 23
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 66%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 10 years
Median of the 6 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 23 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Long lifespan and sturdy build
“the same Dell Precision system I gave them almost 10 years ago works great today”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “10% of Firefox crashes are caused by bitflips” “these are built like tanks, somewhere between consumer and toughbook standards”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “The Windows laptop market is so bad I'm considering a MacBook” “late-century, grossly-overbuilt Dell Precision desktop”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “LLMs reward expertise” - Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “XPS 16 Creator Edition Laptop”
Reliable in daily use
“I have been using Dell Latitude and Precision for about 15 years and I have have great luck with them.”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” “My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “I'm returning my Framework 16” “It has done everything I asked of it.”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Fixing a Bricked Framework Laptop” - Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung”
Good Linux support and battery life
“Dell have pre-installed & fully supported Ubuntu on a bunch of their Precision, XPS, and, more recently, Pro laptops for over a decade now.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “Omacom Foundation funding hits $10M” “I still have a rather old Dell Precision mobile workstation (sold with Linux) with excellent quality that no Apple laptop ever approached.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” “The Linux battery life's even quite good, ~10 hours.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” Cheap refurbished on eBay
“if you are happy with those specs you can get corporate ewaste dell towers on ebay for low prices”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung” “buy 3 year old Dell Precision refurb on eBay for a third of that”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Runs hot and uses lots of power
“They are all heavy, pretty bad at energy efficiency and run extremely hot”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Dell's CES 2026 chat was the most pleasingly un-AI briefing I've had in 5 years” “the issue is they use a crapton of power”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung” Sleep and wake problems
“basically the only issue I had was on the Windows side with sleep states”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” “frequently have problems going to sleep”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” “never woke from S3 sleep properly”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” Quality varies between models
“Some models had problems and others were rock solid.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Dell Admits It Made a Mistake When It Abandoned XPS” “They can never seems to get their shit together.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Dell Admits It Made a Mistake When It Abandoned XPS”
Other workstations people recommend
The four most recommended other workstations, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mac Pro | 49 | 92 | 35% | 11 | 16 yrs10 owners | — |
| Tinybox by tinygrad | 25 | 31 | 45% | 4 | — | — |
| Dell PrecisionThis page | 23 | 12 | 66% | 9 | 10 yrs6 owners | — |
| Sun SPARCstation IPX | 12 | 5 | 71% | 4 | — | Approved |
| SGI Indy | 9 | 2 | 82% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
33 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I have a Dell Precision that's a tank though.”
“somehow they all feel unsufficient”
“Dell have pre-installed & fully supported Ubuntu on a bunch of their Precision, XPS, and, more recently, Pro laptops for over a decade now.”
“It has done everything I asked of it.”
“late-century, grossly-overbuilt Dell Precision desktop”
“my Windows touchpads are much more responsive, especially when swiping between desktops”
“these are built like tanks, somewhere between consumer and toughbook standards”
“my Dell Precision 7920 (44c/88t, 256Gb RAM) had about 20 minutes of UPS power”
“buy 3 year old Dell Precision refurb on eBay for a third of that”
“I like my Dell Precision T7910 (dual-socket Xeon FTW) a lot.”
“The 15"-17" workstation class Dell Precision, Lenovo P*, HP Zbook, and Framework 16 laptops are well suited to this purpose.”
“the rest of what you get for nearly $10k is 32 GB RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and a Windows 11 Pro license”
“I really really don't understand why the f** they thought it was a good idea to do away with the Latitude and Precision lines”
“the same Dell Precision system I gave them almost 10 years ago works great today”
“have lasted 9 months before failing completely”
“Plus there's way less work in getting it all set up.”
“Some models had problems and others were rock solid.”
“They can never seems to get their shit together.”
“never woke from S3 sleep properly”
“I'd take the bigger trackpad and better screen of the XPS/precision any day”
“They are all heavy, pretty bad at energy efficiency and run extremely hot”
“consider the dell precision laptop workstation instead which is the business version of consumer level xps”
“My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.”
“the issue is they use a crapton of power”
“I have been using Dell Latitude and Precision for about 15 years and I have have great luck with them.”
“it's been working pretty well”
“it's quiet and doesn't look like industrial equipment”
“if you are happy with those specs you can get corporate ewaste dell towers on ebay for low prices”
“Linux battery life is atrocious, maybe 3 hours under light usage.”
“frequently have problems going to sleep”
“I still have a rather old Dell Precision mobile workstation (sold with Linux) with excellent quality that no Apple laptop ever approached.”
“The Linux battery life's even quite good, ~10 hours.”
“basically the only issue I had was on the Windows side with sleep states”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.