How do they come up with the most confusing naming schemes on the planet? You would think that making it easy to identify which product is which would boost sales, or someone at least has the sanity to make it easy to understand.
(i.e. CPUs, laptop processors, USB standard, most smartphones, monitors, anything made by Sony that’s not a Playstation…)
Ok there are often resons for the madness.
Lets look at the naming standard of Dell monitors:
I have a Dell U2724D as my main monitor.
The syntax is [Series][Diagonal Size][Year][Ratio/Resolution][Features]
In my case the code for the Series is “U”
Since about 2010 their standard series has been:
E: Essential - Normally a TN anti glare panel, internal power, simple stand, 3 year warranty.
P: Professional - Normally an IPS anti glare panel, internal power, height/rotate adjustable stand, 3-year warranty.
S: Small Office/Home - Can be IPS, TN or VA panel, usually external power supply, slim stand, 1-year warranty.
U: Ultrasharp - IPS anti glare panel, internal power, height/rotate adjustable base, 3 year warranty.
UP: Ultrasharp with PrimerColor - additional color gamut.
AW: Alienware - High-end gaming
C: Commercial displays - Large format (50"+), for conference rooms and classrooms.
Ok so looking at my monitor, U2724D, we can see that it is from the Ultrasharp series.
The next section is the diagonal size, Dell uses two digits to represent the size, in my case it is 27, so I have a 27" monitor.
Then we come to the year section, this tells us the year the monitor was released, in my case it says 24, so my monitor was released in 2024.
Then we come to the resolution part:
S: standard ratio - 4:3 or 5:4.
no letter: computer widescreen - 16:10
H: HD widescreen - 16:9
W: Ultrawide - 21:9
D: QHD - 1440p
Q: 4K - 2160p
K: 8K - 4320p
In my case, the resolution letter is D, meaning my monitor is a QHD/1440p monitor.
Finally we have come to the Features section:
C: USB-C input - can accept DisplayPort over USB-C.
X: HDMI cable included, instead of standard DsiplayPort cable.
T: Touchscreen
G: nVidia G-sync
F: AMD Freesync
J: Wireless charging stand
Z: Videoconference camera
A: Monitor arm included, no stand
E: Ethernet networking, works like a proper dock.
S: Built in speakers.
My monitor does not have any extra features, but my dad has the U2721DE monitor which has a built in dock and networking.
The reason for the annoying names is to differentiate features, series, year releases and more.
that naming scheme at least makes a bit of sense, but you’d need to KNOW the naming scheme. Most people probably aren’t well-versed at the naming schemes of every manufacturer. There are probably too many models forcing manufacturers to make alphanumeric soup names.
Why not something like the “Dell Ultrasharp 27” 1440p 2024“ (Ultrasharp doesn’t need to be repeated again as a “U”, instead of ambiguous numbers it’s more clearly defined which is screen size which is year)
Using that as a product name will introduce more risk of errors, and for the main consumer, businesses, it makes more sense to use a short product code.
Imagine an IT manager ordering new monitors, they can just call their supplier up and say:
Instead of saying
The first one is far easier to parse and make sure you get the stuff you want, the other is far more prone to errors.
This is not even getting into the issues with product databases and inventory management.
To add to this, it’s a hell of a lot easier to cross language barriers with the the alphanumeric product name than it is with the English name, which only works for English and would need accurately translating for every language&product for every region you want to buy/sell in.
It would be an absolute nightmare to try for every product that’s sold in multiple regions, etc
fair point. Dell in my opinion isn’t so bad at this, especially given their extensive range of products for both consumers and businesses
At least back when my bicycle was made in August 1981, the serial number made sense, assuming you know the syntax.
My bike’s serial number starts with H1???
H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so that was made in the 8th month, August.
1 is the last digit of the year in the 1980s, so 1981.
Things were almost so much simpler once upon a time, but yeah the coding of model names and serial numbers has definitely gotten more complicated over the
yearsdecades…interesting
I consider Dell’s naming scheme of their monitors the gold standard. It’s short, descriptive and easy to remember.
I got a U2720Q myself, and I know I got it because I know what size it is and when I bought it. I also got another monitor that’s seemingly just a random series of numbers. I can’t remember a single digit of that one.
The naming scheme are often logical but the problem is each brand has a different scheme with different logic. So it take some quite time when you are comparing different products from different companies.