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
At the Mercy of Microsoft
The biggest limitation to these all in one designs is that if you're an OEM other than Apple or basically if you're shipping a Windows system, you're bound by the abilities of the OS. Apple is in a unique position as it controls the hardware and software stack to tightly integrate the two, resulting in features that just work.
Over the past year Dell has taken notice of its need to be more of a software and hardware developer and recently introduced its first major addition to Vista, it's called the Dell Dock.
The Dell Dock, it sits at the top of your screen
Sitting at the top of your screen, the Dell dock is reminiscent of Apple's Dock in Mac OS X but with a more limited purpose.
The Dell Dock is actually surprisingly good, it's a great way of condensing the handful of frequently used applications into an easy to access launch bar. It keeps your desktop clean and since most users only need a handful of applications, it significantly reduces trips to the Start Menu which has honestly outlived much of its usefulness over the years.
It's customizable, just drag new shortcuts onto it
The XPS One ships with IE7 as the default web browser, which just felt wrong. The first thing I found myself doing is looking for either Firefox or Chrome, I settled on the latter and simply drug the desktop icon to the Internet menu in the Dock. The Dock added Google Chrome to the Internet category, then asked me if I wanted to remove the Chrome icon from the desktop - how sweet.
Where the Dell Dock falls short is in its inability to truly replace the taskbar. Switching between applications still requires an ALT+TAB, Vista's Flip3D or a visit to the taskbar. Dell's Dock addresses the issue of launching applications, but finding and moving between apps remains issues that Windows needs to address. It looks like Microsoft plans on doing this with Windows 7, but at a year away from launch Dell needs to find something to do in the interim.
The Vista hindrance continues to limit Dell even if we look at the simple things. Both Windows Vista and Mac OS X support a hybrid sleep mode where the contents of memory are written to disk as well as kept active in main memory. So long as you have power, your machine will wake up from sleep nearly instantaneously as all data is still valid in main memory. Lose power and the contents of memory are safe on your disk and simply restored as soon as you get power back.
The suspend to RAM nature of this hybrid sleep means that waking up from sleep should be instant, which it is on both Vista and OS X. For whatever reason however, Vista takes longer to give you full control of your system once more. The table below shows how long it takes from sleep to when I can begin using my mouse on both the Dell XPS One 24 (or any other Vista machine for that matter) vs. Apple's 24" iMac:
| Apple iMac (OS X) | Apple iMac (Vista) | Dell XPS One 24 (Vista) | |
| Time to fully wakeup from Sleep | 7 seconds | 10 seconds | 12 seconds |
The Dell XPS One 24 took around 12 seconds to give me an active mouse after being woken up from sleep, the 24" iMac actually woke up in 3.8 seconds but needed 7 seconds total to restore the active network connection. OS X appears to get you back to your desktop sooner and definitely back to work quicker than Vista. I ran the same test on the iMac running Vista just to make sure that hardware differences weren't the cause, and it took the iMac approximately 10 seconds to give me a working mouse cursor after being pulled out of sleep.
For some reason Vista seems to take longer to wake up your input devices from sleep than OS X, it's not a huge deal but again, something that's out of Dell's hands to do anything about.
Remember the issues I mentioned earlier about the brightness and volume display not working with Pidgin in the foreground? Once again I suspect that these are OS/software interaction issues.
Very Apple-esque, nice work Dell
Not too different, eh?
None of the problems here are tremendous, but they do illustrate key frustrations that OEMs like Dell are facing these days. As time goes on, these OEMs must be equal parts software and hardware developers in order to truly complete their platforms. We're seeing a bit of that today, but more is necessary.
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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.