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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croc - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
I personally don't like wireless mousies, keyboards, nor do I like batteries or charging stations... In fact, I actually hate all of the above. So I'd hope that Dell's devices have a 'remove' function so I could easily use my preferred wired devices.For both of these all-in-ones, the average user will get similar functionality. They will also get less cluttered workplaces. And if the user is moving from XP, then the learning curve of moving to either OS-X or Vista should be similar, so no advantage there, really. If my Mum's PC died, I'd let her look at both and be happy with whichever she chose. And understand that I will be the first port-of-call if she has issues...
Ptaltaica - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
The best part about your laptop articles is seeing the machines disassembled. It's important, at least for me, to see what they're doing with the cooling systems in the machines because I consider it an indicator of how well engineered the machine is. I really wish you'd done that with these machines as well; I realize that most people will never take them apart, but as I said, I think it's an important indicator of quality.sxr7171 - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 - link
I'm sure it's designed just fine. Dell doesn't mess around with premium products like they do with their low end. You just want to see XPS porn.Xavitar - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
The implementation of the monitor's panel controls looks fantastic. I just got a new 24" Samsung LCD, and the display is killer -- but the design of the panel controls is very frustrating. Switching between input sources (HDMI -> DVI) in the dark is near impossible because there is absolutely no visual indicator or tactile feedback on the touch controls. Since this LCD model functions well as a small HDTV but does not include a remote control, this becomes almost unbearable. Especially when you accidentally hit the wrong button, which changes the "Input Source" button to some other function depending on the option you are in. Argh.chef24 - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
thanks Anand, this is the review i've been waiting for. all-in-one's have come a long way and manufacturer willing, could go even futher.i'd like to see these two match up against sony's latest LV line being introduced next week.
Spivonious - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
12 seconds on Vista? Really? My machine at home resumes from sleep in under 5 seconds. That's complete mouse-moving/application accessing awake.croc - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
So I guess you have a new Dell XPS? Because that was what was being measured, NOT your home PC.Wolfpup - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
-Most monitors do NOT use LED backlighting. I'm only aware of a SINGLE consumer level panel that does, from Viewsonic.-The iTunes control issue has NOTHING to do with Dell. That's EXACTLY the behavior you get with the current version of iTunes using ANY keyboard based media controls...and IMO it's a good thing. Apple briefly changed that behavior so that iTunes would respond to input from media controls even in the background-which means you can't use the media controls for playing back a Blu Ray disc or whatever while iTunes is open. Hit play, and both the movie and iTunes start in (or if one's playing, it stops and the other goes). It was extremely annoying, and I'm glad they switched it back to only responding in the foreground.
At any rate, that has NOTHING to do with Dell.
CSMR - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Why does the article claim that the OS advantage, if any, goes to Apple? That needs an article in itself but suffice to say that Windows is the favoured OS among ordinary consumers, businesses and power users, such as frequent AnandTech. Especially businesses and power users are not so price-sensitive that they are picking Windows over Apple despite thinking Apple has the better OS.And regarding Dell's "improvements" to Vista: to non-technical style-conscious users they may be an advantage, but in Vista you can arrange program startup any way you want:
-you can put programs in the Start menu
-you can find them in start menu->programs
-you can use a combination of start menu main programs, frequently used programs, and the full programs list
-you can put them in the task bar for one-click access
-You can put them on the desktop
...
Look, you are not going to get Anandtech users saying: "wonderful, with Dell's new software I can now get at my programs".
preslove - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
I want to see what's inside. That's why I read your reviews, Anand :p.Also, the fact that the hard drive has not been user replaceable in the iMac since the switch to intel has been a serious reason for my reluctance to get one.