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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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.