The All-in-One Battle: Dell's XPS One 24 vs. Apple's iMac
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 30, 2008 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Blu-ray Support
The XPS One model Dell sent me features a built-in Blu-ray drive, a clear advantage over the competing iMac - provided that you actually have a Blu-ray collection. For what it's worth, when playing a movie the Blu-ray drive is actually quieter than when the HDD is being accessed, not to beat a dead horse or anything.
Blu-ray playback is handled by the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GPU in the system, so CPU utilization on my test sample's Core 2 Quad Q8200 remained at a sub 15% level the entire time I watched Casino Royale while writing this review. While CPU utilization was nice and low, sometimes the application would skip frames when decoding a movie. I informed Dell of my issue and they're working on reproducing the problem, I noticed the dropped frames on Casino Royale and Transformers, although Batman Begins worked just fine. See a common trend? Allow me to illuminate the situation. Both Casino Royale and Transformers use the H.264 codec, Batman Begins is a VC-1 title. This appears to be a NVIDIA driver or an application issue unfortunately newer drivers weren't available at the time of publication, so we'll have to wait on Dell to resolve the problem, although I'm quite convinced it's a H.264 decoding issue.
We've already looked at NVIDIA's Blu-ray playback quality and performance and its role in the XPS One is no different. Despite NVIDIA's excellent support for 24p playback, the XPS One's display isn't capable of a 24Hz refresh rate so you'll see some jitter when watching 1080p/24 movies, but this is the case on most consumer level displays so we can't be too picky. Not to mention that the XPS One isn't really intended to be a HTPC replacement, its Blu-ray support is simply a nice feature.
Blu-ray application support is provided by Cyberlink's PowerDVD DX and is loosely integrated into Windows Media Center, selecting the Blu-ray disc option from within Vista Media Center (VMC) simply launches the standalone PowerDVD DX application. PowerDVD DX is hardly the best Blu-ray player in the world; you have no ability to configure the application's settings, upon closing the application you have to manually get back into the VMC interface and I even ran into a problem where I couldn't get the menu controls to work anymore when watching Transformers, requiring a full reboot. None of these are Dell-specific problems, but just issues with the Cyberlink player in general.
Dell uses a Panasonic UJ-225S drive, which can read and write to both single and dual layer DVDs and Blu-ray discs. BD-R/BD-RE discs can be written to at 1X or 2X depending on if they are single or dual layer discs.
All in all the Blu-ray drive is a nice feature of the top end model, though not entirely necessary it is an option you simply can't get on the competing iMac. Blu-ray discs are increasing in popularity and it never hurts to be able to play back all types of content, although personally I'm not sure if I'd opt for $2299 version simply for Blu-ray support.
Integrated TV Tuner
The XPS One, unlike the iMac, ships with an integrated analog/ATSC tuner which does give it a convenience advantage over its competition, especially if you're going to use it in a dorm room or other locale where you need cable TV access but would rather not have a separate TV setup. Note that there is no support for CableCARD, so all you're going to get are unencrypted HDTV channels on this tuner. Unfortunately the software setup on the XPS One 24 wouldn't allow me to tune to anything other than analog cable channels, so I couldn't test the supposed QAM functionality of the AverMedia A317 combo tuner in the box. It did work with analog cable though.
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UpsetAtDell - Saturday, December 19, 2009 - link
Beware ordering a Dell system! I ordered one for my mom for Christmas on Nov 20th with a delivery date of Dec 9th. On the 17th of Dec I was notified that it wouldn't be delivered until Dec 31st, too late for me to set it up for her. After a very difficult time getting through to a customer service representative, I was told that they would not rush the order or rush shipping for me. I had to cancel and buy from a retail store instead. Beware Dell!strikeback03 - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
Would it kill either of these to have USB ports somewhere more accessible than the back of the device? I plug stuff into my front ports daily. Maybe on a side or behind a door or something? The single-cable look goes away if you have a USB extension hanging out full-time to get a port in a more useful location.Maybe someone here can answer this - how do you make OSX play all the photos in a folder on a USB drive as a slideshow? I brought some photos from an event at work into the main office, and we decided to show them on the head administrator's 24" iMac as it was the largest display around. We could get a slideshow to launch but not play, we ended up launching XP in Parallels to see the photos. Later that night I IMed a friend who uses a Mac, and she didn't know either. Can this really be that hard?
ffakr - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
Apple's keyboard has an un-powered USB port on each side. It'll run most things.. but it doesn't have the current to run a bus powered 2.5" drive or the like.However, I agree.. the iMac needs to have a more convenient way to access USB. I use a MacBook Pro docked to a Dell 24" and I'm very happy to have 2 USB ports on the right side (and a flash reader!!, come on Apple).
OS X doesn't integrate a slideshow viewer into the Finder like Windows does in Explorer. Apple wants you to import them into iPhoto.
There are several easy ways to view pictures though.. This is generally fine for the owners of a machine but I understand that you just wanted to look at the pics on someone else's computer.
- There is a finder view called CoverFlow. You might be familiar with this in iTunes for Windows. It's also a Finder view and you can scroll the previews as large as you want and flip through the pics like you were shuffling photos on a desktop. You can switch between finder views from the top border of a Finder window.
- Select all the files and open them. Unless you've set .jpgs to open with another app, they should all open in Preview.app which will show you one picture per page (It's the same interface used to render PDFs in OS X).
- Pretty similar.. you can drag the volume (flash drive) or folder full of images onto an app like Preview and it'll open them up. It actually does something cool.. it'll open up photos in sub-folders together in the same window. This is a good reason to have common apps in your Dock.
It's a Mac.. there's probably a half dozen other ways to do this that I can't think of or that I'm not aware of.
As for the Dock argument. There are some cool things you can do with the Dock that you can't do with a task bar, at least I don't think you can do them in Windows. I'm still a 95/98/2000/xp guy.. i've mostly avoided Vista.
- I can drop a folder onto a task bar and access the content by clicking on it. The contents open up in a transparent window. I can drill down into sub directories by holding down the mouse or I can open the directory in a finder window.
- The dock is organized. Permanent shortcuts on the top/left, running apps that aren't always on the dock to the right/bottom of your permanent icons, then a divider bar where folders, doc shortcuts and collapsed App windows go.
- App icons can be stateful. They can give you feedback on your unread mail count (mentioned earlier)...they can have progress bars.. they can even show content including video/animation.
- I don't recall seeing this in any Windows app.. you can right click (command-left click) on a Dock icon and perform App defined things. e.g. I can right click on Mail and select Compose an Email.
rudy - Sunday, November 2, 2008 - link
In this.4wardtristan - Saturday, November 1, 2008 - link
yes a SSD would be a huge improvement over a traditional HDD, but are you (or any one else) ready to fork up the cash to pay for 750GB of SSD space??? (with todays prices)nubie - Sunday, November 2, 2008 - link
I have been running my PCs off of scavenged Tivo HDDs for about 2 years, it doesn't need to be SSD to be unobtrusive.The HDD just needs to not sound like a rock crusher and/or jet engine, not really difficult. But it does require attention and maybe a couple $$.
Ofish - Saturday, November 1, 2008 - link
"...I settled on the latter and simply drug the desktop icon to the Internet menu in the Dock."I couldn't pick up my couch, so instead I simply drug it across the room. lol
I think you mean dragged
nubie - Saturday, November 1, 2008 - link
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drug%5B3...">http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drug%5B3...I don't know, Merriam-Webster has a listing for it, maybe it is best not to complain before checking a dictionary.
I thought this was an interesting review, but I still don't see why they can't put a real PCI-E card in these systems, the Dell is huge (and heavy) with plenty of room for a full-size video card.
Dell needs to pick a quiet hard drive too, this is an area where manufacturers really need to run quality control.
TA152H - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Citing the PS/2 Model 25 as an example of an "all in one" computer is about 10 years late to the party. There were many before that, including the TRS-80 Model II, Model III, and Model 4. The Lisa was essentially like that too, unless you count the keyboard, and so was the original Mac.I have all these vintage machines at home, and the PS/2 Model 25 is kind of crappy. PS/2's as a rule were far better made than the rubbish that is sold today, but the Model 25 is the bottom feeder of the line, and is rather inelegant. If you really want a laugh, get your hands on a Model 4P. This monster was supposed to be portable, but it's a real beast. I don't have one though :( .
xyster - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Windows vs OSX debate aside, the XPS 24 seems to me like it was designed to be a media center PC, not a gaming machine. The premium speakers, the media center controls on the machine, the trackpad on the keyboard, the choice of a quad-core processor and the choice to use a low-heat producing graphics solution-- its pretty obvious.The iMac on the otherhand, being one of the few desktop choices from Apple, was designed to be more open-ended, for gamers and general use included.
I think the Dell excels at what it was created for, and in that regard it beats out the iMac. With all the other alternatives in the PC market, if someone was looking for a gaming machine, I wouldnt suggest the Dell, but something else, which would excel as a gaming machine. Unlike the Mac market, the PC market has plenty of alternatives.
As a general computing device though, the iMac is a nice computer. I just dont think comparing these two computers to see which is 'best' is correct. Using the Apple as a reference system makes sense, but treat the Dell in the regards for which it was designed for.
Good article overall though. Thanks for posting it.