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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
60 Comments
View All Comments
Eidorian - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
It's not that hard.8800M GTS > 9600M GT
HanSolo71 - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
thanks for the top gear reference i wish more people in america would actually get thatsxr7171 - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 - link
Well we have BBC America. But people don't watch it much.Jovec - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
Well, that is the behavior of the MS Intellitype software - it will only control iTunes if it is in the foreground. By contrast, Logitech's Setpoint will control iTunes in the background. I have no idea if Logitech does something extra to make this work, or if MS is purposely limiting their keyboards. Had this exact same issue that encouraged me to move back to a Logitech KB.mfed3 - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
this has to do with the keypresses binding to windows commands. they will all work in media player, media center, and all windows programs.it has to do with itunes controls not mapping directly to the same commands.
logitech's software must look at the media process running and send the correct command
epyon96 - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
Not sure why the author insists on having a Mac OSX bias. I see nothing wrong with the Start menu nor do I find it outdated. Usually, it's 3 clicks max to get to a program with minimal mouse movement. I am not saying Mac OSX has a bad interface but I see nothing wrong with the Start menu unless you are a devoted OSX fan.I am slightly annoyed why Apple still insists on a single button mouse. For some strange reason, Jobs still insists that computer users are too stupid to learn to effectively use a two button mouse. So what does he give us? A one button mouse that tries to emulate two-button mouse behaviour. Sure it looks cool and has that novelty effect but it wears off after the showroom. It begs the question why?
What does the article mean when it says that the 24" inch flat panel monitors have trouble with 24 FPS 1080 Non-interlaced Blu ray playback? Is it trying to say that 24 FPS refresh rate is not possible on the flat panel without ghosting?
CMcK - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Apple haven't shipped a single button mouse with desktops or laptops for a few years now. The Mighty Mouse has four buttons - left, right, side (squeeze) and centre (press the trackball). Very useful. I have mine set for left click, right click, Expose and show desktop.Even the single, or indeed no button, Apple laptops have a left and right click. Just place a second finger on the trackpad and press the button or pad and you have a right click.
I don't find that I actually need to right click often while using OS X.
mikeepu - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Frankly I don't really sense a bias in the article. If anything the author is critical of both systems and just states his (keyword alert) 'personal' preference at the end of the article.But I do agree with you that there is nothing wrong with the Start Menu, its just that the Apple Dock is simpler in that only one click is required to start a program located on the dock or just two clicks if you have the Applications folder (the equivalent of the Programs folder in the Windows Start menu) attached to the Dock. But then again, where’s the harm in a few extra clicks to get to a program?
But man Do i want that Dell all-in-one for a Desktop media center :)
MrDiSante - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
I am also surprised at the obvious pro-Mac OS X bias in the article. Usually Anand is far more impartial, but this is more than a bit on the Engadget side. Pretty as Mac OS X is, I find that Vista actually offers the more practical solutions to task management problems.The taskbar is far better at showing the user what is and isn't running than the dock (something that Microsoft is mistakenly changing with Windows 7 and will hopefully reconsider). As the fact that there is text with the icons allows me to efficiently differentiate between the numerous windows I have open (again, something Microsoft should not change; OS X looks prettier, but Vista takes the usability prize here).
The start menu still makes more sense than Apple's solution since there is in fact a central place to go for all of your programs (although I personally think Linux does a better job of that).
Alt+tab scales far better than expose does. They both work fine if you're running 5 or fewer programs, but expose just gets messy really fast if you exceed that. If you have 10 or more programs open, with stickies gadgets/widgets etc, then Expose gets downright unusable.
Finally, Windows tends to be far more shortcut friendly. Start + number, and start + 3-4 characters + enter usually launch just about any application I need. Alt+tab switches to just about any program I need. Expose and the dock both struggle with shortcut-friendliness.
DCstewieG - Sunday, November 2, 2008 - link
Actually Apple was first on the shortcuts you're talking about. Pressing Apple+Space brings up Spotlight which lets you type the first few characters of the app to find it and Enter to run it.As for Anand's Mac bias, it's a very interesting story. Here you have a devoted editor of a PC hardware site who decided to give a Mac a spin for a month to write an article about it. What happens? He becomes a huge fan in the process.
You see a lot of comments saying that people use Macs because Steve Jobs put them in a trance or because they look nice or something, but here's a guy who came in fresh and decided he liked it a lot by actually using it.
If you haven't read it: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2232">http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2232 (though it is a bit outdated now)