Dell may be expanding its XPS product family in the near future by reviving its currently discontinued XPS 17 laptop and bringing a new dual-screen computing experience to market. According to a leaked road map that was originally created in 2018 and published by Dutch website Tweakers, a larger XPS 17 laptop and a dual-screen XPS product could arrive as early as summer 2020. Additionally, the company is also expected to refresh its popular XPS 13 notebook with the latest 10nm Intel processor next year.
“An XPS 17 should appear in June 2020,” a Google translation of the website noted. The XPS 17 7700 has a code name of Stradale and will come with discrete graphics, similar to the recently announced XPS 15 refresh. Although Dell had previously made the larger 17-inch variant of its XPS notebooks in the past, the company, similar to rival Apple, had discontinued the 17-inch version of its premium notebook series in recent years.
Given that this notebook comes with its own dedicated graphics card, it should make the XPS 17 suitable for casual gaming and for content creation work. The laptop will reportedly arrive with Intel’s Comet Lake H processor and Nvidia GeForce 1660 Ti Max-Q graphics. Though Intel has not announced specifics about Comet Lake H at this time, a previous leak suggested that the processor will arrive with a 14nm architecture and up to 10 cores.
For PC users who want a more compact device with a futuristic form, the dual-screen code-named Maximus device may fit the bill nicely. The road map suggests that Maximus, however, is expected for launch in October 2020. At the time, it was believed that Dell’s concept would offer similar usability to Samsung’s recent Galaxy Fold and Huawei’s dual-screen phones. The bendable displays on those devices offer users a larger screen when opened, but when closed, the unit will be more compact for travel. However, a recent Dell patent application suggests that Dell has its own take on how to augment the user experience with a detachable display. In the past, Dell was rumored to be working on a dual-screen computing device with a code name of Janus, and it’s unclear if Maximus is a different device from Janus.
The site also noted that Dell will also update its mid-size XPS 15 notebook next year with a similar Comet Lake H processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics. The smaller XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 Centenario is also slated for a refresh in August this year. That device will be getting an Intel Ice Lake-U processor with a 10nm architecture. The processor will also be making its way to the standard, non-convertible version of the XPS 13 in 2020.
