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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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)