Dell Pro Max 18 Plus review: A desktop replacement disguised as a laptop

• By Kunal Khullar
Published On: 29 September 2026 | 20:35 IST

Workstation laptops have always been a niche category, sitting somewhere between a traditional desktop replacement and a laptop that is genuinely portable. The Dell Pro Max 18 Plus leans heavily toward the former. Positioned as an elder sibling to the 16-inch variant we reviewed earlier this year, it offers almost the exact spec sheet in a bigger package. With an 18-inch display, Intel’s top-tier Core Ultra 9 285HX, NVIDIA RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell graphics and 128GB of CAMM2 memory, it is built for professionals who need serious performance without being completely tied to a desk.

Putting desktop-class ambitions into a laptop comes with its own set of compromises. A machine this large and powerful needs to justify its size, weight, and price, particularly when there are increasingly capable high-performance laptops that are considerably easier to carry around. The Pro Max 18 Plus therefore raises a simple question: how much workstation performance can Dell deliver in a laptop form factor, and is that performance worth the considerable bulk that comes with it? Let’s find out…

Chasing durability and easy maintenance

The Dell Pro Max 18 Plus is a large, serious-looking machine with a dark gray finish and a relatively understated exterior. Like the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus, there are no flashy accents or gaming-inspired design elements either. The lid carries a subtle Dell logo, and the overall chassis has a clean, business-focused appearance. The top and bottom covers are made primarily from recycled magnesium, while Dell also uses recycled plastics in parts of the chassis. The result is a rigid and sturdy machine that is built as a professional tool rather than something designed to impress on a showroom floor. It is also MIL-STD 810H tested and certified to handle typical wear and tear from daily use.

There is no getting around the sheer size of the machine. It measures 402 x 279.95 mm with a maximum thickness of 31.7 mm and a starting weight of 3.25 kgs. Thus, it is more of a desktop replacement that can be moved around when necessary than a laptop you’d want to carry with you everywhere. The large footprint does at least give the laptop a reassuringly planted feel on a desk, and the substantial chassis leaves plenty of room for the hardware inside.

Speaking of which, serviceability is another area where the Pro Max 18 Plus stands out. The bottom panel is divided into two sections, with one of them designed specifically for quick access to the most important upgradeable components. It is held in place by a single screw and a slide-lock mechanism at the top, so removing it is considerably easier than dealing with a conventional laptop bottom cover. Once removed, the panel provides access to the machine’s four SSD slots, the battery, and the single 128GB memory module.

Notably, the Dell Pro Max 18 Plus and the 16-inch variant are one of the first products to ship with the new class of CAMM2 RAM in addition to supporting traditional SO-DIMM. Dell is also using its DGFF module (Dell’s Graphics Form Factor) so that the GPU can be swapped out easily, while the USB-C ports also feature a modular design. For a workstation that is likely to be used for demanding workloads over several years, having this sort of flexibility is a welcome design choice.

Dell has also taken a practical approach to connectivity. The left side houses the Ethernet port, HDMI 2.1, two Thunderbolt 5 ports, an SD card reader and, depending on the configuration, a Smart Card reader. On the right are another Thunderbolt port, two USB-A ports, the 3.5mm audio jack and a security lock slot. With this many ports built directly into the chassis, the Pro Max 18 Plus is well suited to a workstation setup where users may need to connect external displays, storage, networking equipment and other peripherals without immediately reaching for a dock or USB hub.

A huge screen built for productivity

The Pro Max 18 Plus can be configured up to an 18-inch 2560 x 1600 (QHD+) IPS anti-glare panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Unfortunately, Dell does not offer the laptop with an OLED panel, which is something that we absolutely loved on the Pro Max 16 Plus. Nonetheless, the sheer size of the screen makes a noticeable difference to the overall experience. You get plenty of room for multitasking, with two application windows sitting side by side. Text and UI elements also look sharp at this resolution, so the large panel does not feel like it is simply stretching a lower-resolution image across a bigger surface.

Image quality is impressive, and the panel gets bright enough for use in well-lit environments, while the matte anti-glare finish does a good job of keeping reflections under control. Dell claims peak brightness of up to 500 nits and up to 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is a great match for a workstation aimed at creative and professional workloads. The 120Hz refresh rate is another welcome touch. It makes scrolling, window movement and general desktop interaction noticeably smoother than a conventional 60Hz panel, and it also makes the enormous screen a little more versatile when the machine is used for entertainment or gaming.

Full-size keyboard for a full-size workstation

The Pro Max 18 Plus makes excellent use of its enormous chassis when it comes to the keyboard. There is plenty of space for a full-size layout, and Dell has included a dedicated number pad without making the main keyboard feel cramped. The power button placed on the top right corner doubles as a fingerprint sensor that works fast and accurately. The keys are well spaced and have a comfortable amount of travel, with a firm actuation that makes the keyboard particularly well suited to long typing sessions. It doesn’t have the particularly deep or tactile feel of some business-focused ThinkPad keyboards, but the overall experience is comfortable, and I rarely found myself making accidental presses.

The keyboard is also backlit, which is useful when working in darker environments. The overall layout is conventional enough that there isn’t much of a learning curve, although users moving between different Dell keyboards may need a little time to adjust to some of the secondary key placements. Given the Pro Max 18 Plus’s workstation focus, I appreciate that Dell has prioritised a practical full-size layout over trying to make the keyboard look sleek by sacrificing useful keys.

The trackpad is similarly geared toward productivity. Its large surface provides plenty of room for cursor movement and multi-finger gestures, while tracking is accurate and clicks feel consistent across the surface. The sheer size of the laptop means Dell could arguably have gone even larger with the trackpad, it is nevertheless responsive and comfortable to use.

Plenty of power for professional workloads

The Dell Pro Max 18 Plus is powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285HX, part of Intel’s Core Ultra 200HX family based on the Arrow Lake architecture. It is a 24-core, 24-thread processor with a 55W base power rating, making it one of Intel’s highest-end mobile CPUs for demanding workloads. Our review unit pairs it with 128GB of CAMM2 memory running at 6400 MT/s, providing plenty of capacity for heavy multitasking and professional applications. Storage comes in the form of two 1TB PCIe Gen 5 SSDs configured in RAID, giving the laptop 2TB of total storage while also helping it achieve exceptionally high transfer speeds.

In CrystalDiskMark, the RAID array reached a maximum sequential read speed of around 24,000 MB/s, while sequential write speeds peaked around 23,000 MB/s. Those are extremely impressive figures and considerably higher than what we typically see from a single laptop SSD, although the real-world benefit will naturally depend on the workload.

Moving on to CPU and productivity performance, the Pro Max 18 Plus delivers the kind of performance you’d expect from a machine built around Intel’s top-end mobile processor. I compared it against the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus, MSI Titan 18 HX AI, ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 and HP Omen Max 16, all of which feature similar high-end processors and discrete GPUs. In Cinebench R24’s multi-core test, the Pro Max 18 Plus scored 1,785, compared with 1,982 for the smaller Pro Max 16 Plus, 2,140 for the MSI Titan 18, 1,935 for the Strix Scar 16 and 1,928 for the Omen Max 16. Its single-core score of 125 also trailed the other systems, which ranged from 132 to 137.

Interestingly, the Pro Max 18 Plus performs better in broader system-level workloads. Its 10,114 PCMark 10 score was higher than the Pro Max 16 Plus, Strix Scar 16 and Omen Max 16, although the MSI Titan 18 was ahead at 10,853. In PCMark 10 Extended, the Dell scored 13,777, comfortably ahead of all four laptops in the comparison.

Geekbench 6 produced a somewhat mixed picture where the Pro Max 18 Plus scored 2,891 in single-core and 19,751 in multi-core, with the latter putting it ahead of the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16’s 16,540 but behind the Pro Max 16 Plus and MSI Titan 18. Its OpenCL result of 248,606 was also the highest among the five machines tested, narrowly beating the Titan 18 at 241,274 and the Pro Max 16 Plus at 239,234. In professional creative workloads, the Pro Max 18 Plus also performed well in PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve, scoring 10,444 compared with 9,179 on the Pro Max 16 Plus, 10,869 on the Titan 18, 9,205 on the Strix Scar 16 and 10,747 on the Omen Max 16.

The graphics benchmarks show that the Pro Max 18 Plus is no slouch either. Its RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell is configured with a 175W TGP, putting it in the same power class as the RTX 5090 in the MSI Titan 18 and RTX 5080 GPUs in the Strix Scar 16 and Omen Max 16. In 3DMark Time Spy, the Pro Max 18 Plus scored 21,344, behind the Titan 18 at 22,823 but ahead of the Strix Scar 16 at 20,377 and Omen Max 16 at 20,528. Time Spy Extreme followed a similar pattern, with the Dell scoring 11,466, compared with 11,973 for the Titan 18, 10,707 for the Strix Scar 16 and 10,653 for the Omen Max 16. In Fire Strike Extreme, however, the Pro Max 18 Plus managed 27,948, ahead of the Strix Scar 16 and Omen Max 16 but behind the Titan 18’s 29,327.

The Pro Max 18 Plus isn’t really a gaming laptop, and that’s not what Dell designed it to be. However, a 175W professional GPU with this level of performance means it can certainly handle games when required. In GTA V at 1080p, the laptop averaged 186.46 FPS, essentially matching the MSI Titan 18 HX AI at 187 FPS in the same test suite. So while gaming is unlikely to be the primary reason anyone buys the Pro Max 18 Plus, the machine has more than enough graphics horsepower to deliver a smooth gaming experience when work is done.

Endurance takes a back seat

Despite its much larger chassis, the Pro Max 18 Plus uses the same 96Wh battery as the smaller 16-inch model. In typical use, you can expect around five to six hours of battery life, which isn’t particularly impressive for a laptop of this size but is understandable given the high-performance hardware inside. This is still a workstation that makes the most sense when plugged in during demanding workloads.

In our PCMark 10 Video Loop Benchmark, tested with the Balanced power profile and display brightness set to 80%, the Pro Max 18 Plus lasted 6 hours and 56 minutes. That’s remarkably close to the 7 hours and 7 minutes recorded by the Pro Max 16 Plus, despite the 18-inch model’s larger display.

Dell ships the laptop with a 280W USB Type-C power adapter, which is a nice touch for a workstation with this level of performance. The brick is understandably large, but using USB-C for charging is more convenient than relying on a proprietary connector and gives the Pro Max 18 Plus a more modern approach to power delivery.

Verdict

The Dell Pro Max 18 Plus is a workstation in the truest sense. The top-of-the-line hardware gives it the performance and expandability that demanding professional workloads require. Add in excellent connectivity, a comfortable full-size keyboard and unusually good serviceability, and Dell has built a machine that is remarkably practical for users who need serious computing power on the move.

At over 3.2kg before factoring in its large 280W power adapter, the laptop is closer to a portable desktop than a conventional laptop. Battery life is another compromise, with roughly five to six hours in typical use and just under seven hours in our video-loop test. The lack of an OLED option is also a notable omission, particularly given the creative focus of this class of machine.

Ultimately, the Pro Max 18 Plus makes the most sense for professionals who value performance, screen real estate and long-term upgradeability over portability. It doesn’t try to disguise its size or make compromises to become a more conventional laptop. Instead, Dell has embraced the desktop-replacement approach and built a powerful, highly serviceable workstation around it. If that is what you need, the Pro Max 18 Plus delivers a compelling combination of performance and practicality.

Editor’s Rating: 8.5 / 10

Pros:

• Top-tier performance
• Impressive upgrade potential
• Large screen real estate
• Heavy-duty construction

Cons:

• Bulky to carry around
• No OLED panel option