back to article Dell upping its margins again: Precision 5530 laptop will sting you for $13m. Yep, six zeroes

El Reg's editorial team does not typically cheerlead any tech. We are dispassionate observers sat at the side of the industry's sales super highway. Or something like that. The latest offer from Dell, however, was too tempting to ignore. The Precision 5530 is Dell's "thinnest, lightest and smallest 15 inch mobile workstation …

  1. Fading

    Bah

    Pop over to dell outlet and you can get a scratch and dent one for $10,000,000 .... probably.

    1. JetSetJim

      Re: Bah

      When I click the link, I get the same price amount but in proper British quids, rather than foreign coin, and the screen grab is also in quids. Is someone using the wrong keyboard?

      1. Deadly_NZ

        Re: Bah

        I just checked and the NZ version is only a mere $5839.00 so I should be able to buy them here and become a Gazionalaire in no time at all.

        1. JetSetJim

          Re: Bah

          Pricing now corrected in the UK

          1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

            Re: Pricing now corrected in the UK

            They've reverted it to the pre-Brexit price.

  2. Shadow Systems

    Dell: We've upped our margins now up yours!

    *Cough*

    Only $13M each? Hell, I'll take ten!

    *Explodes in sarcasm*

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's an Apple move

    Of course if it costs so much it must be exceedingly good, and you can show off.

    1. Sandtitz Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: It's an Apple move

      I Am Rich. Best app I ever bought.

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: It's an Apple move

        I really enjoyed going down that Rabit Hole you provided. (The Wiki Link to "Third World Countries"), that has the Emerald Isle, in of all Colours Green. Why should I find this enjoyable you mighr be asking yourselves. Well Blue is considerd First World, Red was given to Russia, and China, (You know those Second World faild Socialist States. Kinda makes sence in a poetic sort of way.), and alas the poorest Third Worlders got stuck with Green.

        Perhaps I should donate some Potatos?!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's an Apple move

          I really enjoyed going down that Rabit Hole you provided

          Was that a rabid hole or a rabbit hole?

          Enquiring, slightly smudged minds want to know.

          :)

          1. Michael Habel

            Re: It's an Apple move

            I seem to have a bit of a blind spot for the second "b" :-p

        2. FrankAlphaXII

          Re: It's an Apple move

          It was because of the way that the forces were color coded at the Louisiana Maneuvers just before the US entered the second world war.

          Traditionally, the British Army and the Armies of its dominions and colonies (especially India) was colored red or pink, and it still is if you look at their flag. Blue (or sometimes Black) were always the enemy. The Prussians/Imperial Germans and Russians wore blue, as did the French. The British Army always made plans to deal with any of them hence the OPFOR color was blue. Matched the uniforms.

          General Douglas MacArthur, control freak that he was, convinced General Marshall, Admirals Stark and King, and even FDR that it was some British or in some versions Nazi, Japanese or general communist bullshit (or to remind Stalin who was top dog in yet other versions of the story) and that he demanded the US War Department start color coding our forces blue on our maps with the enemy being red. OPFOR became red, and is still red to this day (I was in an OPFOR unit, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, as my first permanent party assignment. We're always red on the BLUFOR maps and such at NTC) which was convenient in the Cold War given the Soviet propensity to use the color red.

          Green are neutrals which we consider friendly but don't have any kind of operational control over. We tend to use it nowadays for Islamic governments and movements that we usually have a strategic alignment with (since they tend to use green in their symbols) like the Iraqi Army and the ANA/ANP, with the Jihadis and Iranian SOF being colored black or red depending on who they are and who's doing the coding. I've also seen purple being used for them, usually for stuff like the Mahdi Army and Iranian militias in Iraq/Syria or Hekmatyar's people in Afghanistan because while we've had to kill them in the past and they're still not really "friendly" and you probably don't want to lead a patrol through their territory, they're not usually trying to shoot at us or bomb us....for the moment anyway.

    2. Fungus Bob

      Re: It's an Apple move

      Apple is for peasants!

  4. Cynic_999

    Ready for January

    You'll find that this is being offered at that price for the mandatory period so that they can legitimately advertise it having a "99.9% discount" during the January sales and still charge $13000.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    If you don't like those prices El Reg...

    I'll sell you however many you need for a measly $5 million each. I'm giving them away!! My prices are so low that people think I'm crazy!!!

    (At least I believe that my bargain-basement largesse is why people think I'm crazy.)

    1. astounded1

      Re: If you don't like those prices El Reg...

      Crazy Eddie resurrected!!!

      His prices are insane!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rer9W58-qQQ

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: If you don't like those prices El Reg...

        Thanks for reminding me of my childhood. At least not everything got ruined by NPC / SJWs.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Must be made from unobtainium.

  7. knarf

    Apple Goading

    Wait till Apple sees this price, all new ipads will be at least £30,000,000 and extra £20,000,000 for that extra 250mb of storage.

  8. JeevesMkII

    One for the tax experts.

    If I buy one of these at the Dell discount value, can I claim depreciation against its "market value" and thus wipe out my corporation tax bill for years to come? ... I'm asking for a friend.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: One for the tax experts.

      "I'm asking for a friend"

      Does your "friend" work in an oval office these days?

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: One for the tax experts.

        No but, I gather She'll become a Speaker in 2019....

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: One for the tax experts.

      Yes, but I’m guessing it will take a very long time to make $13m of profit, so you would still be out of pocket, and Michael Dell would see all the benefits, not you.

  9. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    Maybe it's a personalised model

    Does it have a name on the back? Like, oh I don't know, Jeff Fairburn?

  10. Androgynous Cow Herd
    Joke

    clearly a website Bug!

    Somehow the pricing for the Federal contracts got applied to the retail site.

  11. Daedalus

    They made a mistake in the price

    It wasn't pounds sterling, it was Venezuelan bolivars.

    1. Michael Habel

      Re: They made a mistake in the price

      I thought they switched over to using Rare Pepes sometime back?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    See, this is why commentards like to point out El Reg mistakes in the forum rather than privately through the 'corrections' option. Highlighting mistakes is fun!

  13. astounded1

    These Operate With Actual Clouds

    Delish! Let's get 100. We can connect them to the Dell cloud. Wait, what? Dell doesn't have a cloud?

  14. Charlie van Becelaere

    At that price

    they should at least pay the VAT.

  15. Mark 85

    New strategy?

    This reminds of the old joke about the kid selling lemonade for $100 a glass. He only had to sell one in order to buy the bike he wanted. Maybe Dell thinks this is a example to follow?

    1. #define INFINITY -1

      Re: New strategy?

      Please explain the joke (for readers who may be foreign). Was the lemonade stand IoT enabled? Maybe a physical 'like' button that only required Lucy's customers to accept the biometric Ts&C? Was she going to ride off on that $100 bike just as Charley was about to kick the ball?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: New strategy?

      Ah, the classic "How I made $290,000 selling books" scheme.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: New strategy?

      Example? That kid is all grown up now, and is the Dell CFO

  16. Christoph

    And that's ...

    Cutting their own throat

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: And that's ...

      Got any pies to go with it?

      1. hplasm
        Happy

        Re: And that's ...

        Gotta sausage-inna-bun.

        It's meatish.

        1. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?

          Re: And that's ...

          Gotta sausage-inna-bun.

          It's meatish.

          Really great mustard though.

          (Possibly too specific a reference? Mr. Pin will have me for that.)

  17. Azerty

    Zimbabwe!

    Is inflation going over the top already?

  18. Stevie

    Bah!

    Okay, lesson learned: Attention entry-level Java programming new hires!

    a) No more doing currency calculations in real data types.

    2) Those huge negative numbers on the monthly sales report? They mean whoever added a second title line to the report needs to go back and look hard at their code too because the word "total" is being read as the total.

    *) Perhaps cracking a manual instead of breaking from twitter just long enough for a search of Stackoverflow will save your jobs.

    1. Glen 1

      To be fair, it's a sane default.

      How many tat flingers have been caught out by having an empty price field mean 0.00? Or 0.01?

    2. David 132 Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Bah!

      You forgot a couple...

      iv) Always add sanity-checking / canary logic to any transaction-processing system.. e.g if ($item_price) > ($maximum_price_you'd_ever_realistically_expect) then flag_for_review();

      Session) Also flag for review any abnormal traffic levels to any given page. If a particular laptop is getting 500% of the views of other, similar products, it's either a pricing mistake, or a content cockup of some sort.

      Saturday) Can we just settle on a list numbering scheme, please?

      Order) Apparently not.

    3. jimbo60

      Re: Bah!

      I thought Stackoverflow *was* the manual.

  19. Colabroad

    When I was working at a now defunct astronomically named electronics bazaar they would price stock at silly amounts when it needs to be added to the system but hadn't yet been released. It was common with things like video games and Cupertino idiot taxes where the shop would be penalised for breaking street dates.

    We didn't usually make it customer facing though...

  20. Daedalus

    It's the Banksy model

    Turn it on and it shreds itself.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Price reduced

    Just noticed the price on the advert has gone down quite a bit. Still very expensive, though.

    >> Starting at £6,501,398.58

  22. JJJJust

    Tip

    Price includes 3Y onsite service.

    Choose 4Y onsite service and SAVE £6,499,775.94!

    What a deal!

    1. onefang
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Tip

      "Price includes 3Y onsite service."

      At those prices, it should include three years of in bedroom servicing.

  23. bobdehn

    It's all Brexit, man. In the EU these things are €1,450.

  24. Someone Else Silver badge
    WTF?

    What...?

    What? Did Pharma Bro just buy Dell?

  25. GrumpyKiwi

    Wahay! The NZ $$ has appreciated against the Pound Sterling more than I had realised.

    https://www.dell.com/en-nz/work/shop/workstations/precision-5530/spd/precision-15-5530-laptop/on5530wm03nz

    That would suggest the exchange rate is 1NZ$ = 2,225 quid. I could have quite the hookers n'coke party in London on what's down the back of the couch!

  26. herman

    The price is dropping like a rock. When I checked it was only 6.5 million pounds. Maybe order one before it goes up again?

  27. Michael Habel

    That extra £350m

    ITT: Remoaners will moan on... and on.... and on....

    1. Glen 1

      Re: That extra £350m

      Yes. Yes we will.

  28. Snapper

    PoE?

    I was wondering what the startled hott..>sorry<...young lady was so surprised about in the photo. Obviously her IT man has got her iMac working using PoE and, as that uses thinner cables she won't be using so much electricity and wearing out her battery!

  29. Velv
    Headmaster

    Sensible Option

    So this *might* be a sensible move by Dell.

    We've all heard of the instances of people buying cheap goods because they were listed with a low price. So why not introduce a policy that all goods listed must have an unrealistically high price when first listed, then the price can be set to the normal price once the listings are validated.

    Or they could just make sure the details are right first time...

  30. Jedipadawan

    >"After all, with the extra £350m that will be freed up when Britain exits the EU, "

    Here's hoping this Dell box has the welly to calculate the probability of Brexit happening in any meaningful form.

    My understanding is a lot of zeroes are involved...

    1. Glen 1

      > meaningful form

      Define "meaningful"

      As of this writing it could be anything from "Have to obey all the rules, but don't get a say" (aka taking back control) through to "international pariah" but being seemingly dumbfounded as to why.

      Both of which would be quite meaningful.

      1. Jedipadawan

        >Define "meaningful"

        That requires another laptop with more horsepower.

        For my pat, I used a much smaller machine back in the day to run figures through on a spreadsheet, identify the real rates of tax I was paying (over 50%) and bought a meaningful ticket out of the old country to head to SE Asia to eventually set up my own business.

        Meaningful depends on your value system. I value my liberty rather highly.

        1. Glen 1

          Fair enough, although it does seem having jumped ship makes your opinion worth a bit less.

          See also: Brits retiring to Spain, but still wanting Brexit.

          All this "freedom" stuff just means our political masters want to be "free" to sell us to American companies. Inconveniences to whoring out our data like GDPR... which get ignored (like phorm or the google healthcare stuff). The withdrawal from the EU bill is a massive power grab. No MPs voting, just the gov deciding by fiat. "Freeedom"

          Do you think the old county's taxes will go *down* with a "meaningful" exit?

          I'm half tempted to jump ship myself with the current shower of shit in charge.

  31. WatAWorld

    Dell thinking it could compete with Apple

    Potential customers:

    1. NHS

    2. Military

    3. Trust fund kids

    4. "Baristas and other creatives"

  32. onefang

    "a mid-range device"

    I really don't want to see the price for the high-range devices.

  33. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Dell upping its margins again

    Maybe it was a CSS error.

  34. MrKrotos

    Strange price?

    This reminds me of the time I saw a banner on ebay for some product @ £3.999

    Not sure how the change will work for that :P

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Strange price?

      With VAT, it'll still be over £10

  35. usbac Silver badge

    The question I have is did they sell any?

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Premiership football players. Earn that just in the interval.

  36. Blade
    Facepalm

    It's even cheaper in Oz

    Just looked this up on the Dell Australian site and prices ranged from $2,669.00 to $5,599.00

  37. Blade

    Found it even cheaper in Oz

    According to the Dell Australia site you can buy one from $2,669.00 to $5,599.00

    For once we're not being penalised with excessive price gouging.

  38. Aladdin Sane

    But can it run Crysis?

    1. onefang

      If they kept that price for a Fortnite, they could have a Crysis on their hands.

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