Dell’s new XPS One wins “the prize for most affordable [US$2,399] all-in-one with a Blu-ray drive,” Rich Brown reports for CNET Reviews. But, “you can get better overall computing and home theater experiences from other systems.”
“If it’s not the best pure living room PC, the [20-inch] XPS One is also not the best productivity-oriented desktop, even among other all-in-ones. In that category, Apple’s iMac still rules the day,” Brown reports.
“On every test, from music encoding to photo editing to multitasking, the XPS One falls behind the iMac that costs $750 less. There’s no HD drive on the iMac, so its entertainment powers are limited to standard-def audio and video, but it’s also reasonable to expect from any all-in-one that it also perform well as a computer… It’s just not as fast as its significantly less expensive competition,” Brown reports.
“As it did with its new XPS 420 desktop, Dell again closes the gap with Apple on this system with its software. Argue about Vista vs. the new Leopard OS all you want, but we’re referring to Adobe’s Elements Studio suite that competes strongly against Apple’s iLife 08 software. No other PC vendor offers an answer to iLife, and this remains a selling point for Dell,” Brown reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Dell’s “answer” to Apple’s bundled software is weak, to say the least, and Brown neglects to mention the very important fact that only Apple’s iMac can run all of the software the Dell can, plus its own superior Mac OS X Leopard OS and all of the often best-in-class Mac only software. It’d be a silly mistake to pay way more for this thing from Dell when you can pay far less and get so much more with an Apple iMac. Apple’s 20-inch iMac starts at $1199. Add in a Blu-ray drive from FastMac for $999 and you’re only at $2198, still $201 less than the Dell’s OS-limited, underpowered, overpriced XPS One with Blu-ray.
Brown continues, “The bottom line: It’s outclassed as a computer by Apple’s iMac.”
Full review here.
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