There’s been a lot of talk going ’round the internet lately about the new Dell XPS One. It is built as an all-in-one monitor+computer similar to the iMac.
After some intense research, I offer the following well-thought-out and poignant anecdote:
They both suck.
Now I’ll explain why:
I’m not going to talk about what operating system is better at all because it truly doesn’t matter. You’re either a Windows fanboy or a Mactard. Take your pick. You can debate pointlessly about OS accolades and flaws all day long but at the end of the day you’re still dealing with a computer built from kill-fast parts.
The reason why these slabs can fit so much into such a compact space is because the parts are smaller, i.e. laptop parts.
Let me give you the 101 on laptops.
Any laptop is designed to last 2 years. That’s it. If you can get more than 2 years out of any laptop, consider yourself fortunate. It doesn’t matter who makes it because the parts are essentially all the same across the board.
A regular big-box PC on the other hand has a life span of 4 to 5 years. This isn’t to say the OS will stay current (obviously); I’m talking about hardware. The bigger parts do make a difference and moreover the computer can "breathe" easier.
Both the iMac and the XPS One are built from parts designed to last 2 years.
Is it worth it to go with style over longevity?
Absolutely not. No way, no how.
If you want a compact computer, get a laptop. Don’t bother with the PC-pretending-to-be-a-laptop.
In addition, it’s FAR EASIER to change out or upgrade things like the optical drive, RAM and hard drive on a laptop. On my now-old Dell Inspiron 6000, the optical drive comes out by removing a single screw. The RAM takes two screws. The hard drive, one screw. All in plain sight, all easy to change out.
Don’t buy all-in-one slabs. Not worth it.
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“You had an optical drive issue because it’s a slot-load, i.e. a slim that’s laptop sized. Were it a regular standard sized optical drive, it wouldn’t have busted as quickly.”
So the fact that it’s a slot-load drive was the reason the laser couldn’t read blank DVDs anymore?
And yes, in a corporate environment computers are likely to break much quicker because people don’t take as much care of them. Compare this to home users who buy it themselves with their hard earned money and you’ll see they take a lot more care.
“Otherwise go with the big box. If you’re going the Mac route, save up your pennies and get the Mac Pro. Dave did and it’s an awesome box that puts the iMac to shame in every way.”
The Mac Pro is way more expensive than an iMac both in initial cost and the cost to run it. It’s a far more power hungry machine than the iMac. Yes I can go out and buy a replacement drive if something breaks if I have a Mac Pro, but how often do things like this break? With the Mac Pro not only do I have to pay more for the machine and then for the electricity costs to run it but I then have to find space to put the tower. With the iMac I have the entire computer and monitor taking up the space where a monitor would be at a fraction of the total cost to purchase and run the machine.
Strange about the 2 years – I have a Powerbook Pismo (2000) and it is still running strong with 10.4 installed. It is now 2007. Only issue – I had to replace the optical drive after 5 years….not bad….and it has bounced all over the world with me and back and forth to work as well.
Also have a Dell Inspiron that is 4 years old. That unit had the system board replaced twice as well as the optical drive. The quality of the machine was lacking. But it is still running strong now with some of those replacement parts.
I’ve had desktops as well – optical drives always went out – same with my laptops. Hard drives failed – laptop hard drives were upgraded for more space but never failed.
I would agree that sales people, for example, are some of the harder users of laptops and those just might break more often…but the quality of the manufacturing/parts can make a big difference.
What iMac parts are “smaller” than regular desktop parts? They use laptop chips, sure, but are you claiming laptop chips are designed to–what, wear out? break?–after 2 years?
It sounds like you guys baby your machines. In the corporate world/real world, where the vast majority of computers operate, things need to not suck and need to last a long time. There is no time to baby a computer or two…instead, a whole company’s worth of computers has to ‘just work’. If you have to spend the extra time replacing parts on a slab (parts which are often more expensive), you have just wasted money.
And regarding the part about laptops not leaving the desk…what the hell do they call it a laptop for? It’s a mobile PC, designed to GO PLACES. People take laptops with them, that’s why they were made. Hence, real world usage of laptops doesn’t make room for being ‘kept on the desk all their lives like desktops.’
For a “PC Mechanic,” I would agree with you. If you like to tinker with your computer hardware, I would stay away from all-in-ones. But I think all-in-one designs, such as the iMac, have their place.
All-in-ones can make a handy middle-ground between laptop and desktop. For example, I would maintain that an iMac is a transportable computer–convenient to move around a house or office. If you have a wall plug, you have a computer. They take considerably less space than most tower/minitower configurations, convenient for dorm rooms or small apartments.
Personally, I like the towers, but I tend to hold onto my machines for longer and will go buy upgrades such as bigger hard-drives, memory, and (most important) graphics cards.
If you assert that your laptops die after 2 years, you should consider the amazing value of the 3-year warranty from AppleCare. For under $200, you can add 50% to the life of your computer, guaranteed. That should save your IT department an amazing amount of money in no time.
Nonsense, desktop “slabs” have far longer life spans than laptops.
I run iMacs and Apple PowerBook laptops alongside Mac Minis and MacBooks and MacBook Pros (and plenty of Dell, HP and Vaio laptops and desktops) on our campus and have found the laptops do indeed have limited lives in the corporate environment.
However, many of the iMacs are 5-6 years old and still going strong at less demanding tasks, while I currently have many laptops (Wallstreet PowerBook G3, Titanium PowerBook G4, Aluminium Powerbook G4 17″ as well as innumerable HP, Toshiba etc) sitting on shelves busted in one way or another.
The 2 year lives of laptops are due to daily being banged around. The lighter weight laptop components in iMacs/Mac Minis are NOT noticeably less reliable or less long-lived than the many desktop systems we also still run. (mind you we now lease most of our computers for 2 or 3 years before they get replaced so it doesn’t matter even with laptops.)
As long as you don’t want to upgrade video cards, All-in-one iMacs or Mac Minis make a fine desktop computer.
-Mart
I neglected to mention I have a dozen ex-student computer lab second generation (slot-load) 350MHz and 400MHz iMacs made between July 2000 and Feb 2001 onto which I’ve been installing OS X 10.4 (yes they are slow, but they still run OS X) for donation to some local charities and every single one booted up and worked like a Trojan after sitting on a shelf for the past 3 years. These computers are 7 years old for goodness sake!
In contrast I have seven ex-staff PowerBook G3 laptops from 2000-2003 only one of which I’ve been able to get to power on.
I also have four ex-computer lab 15″ flat-screen Lamp-stand iMacs that have been in constant use since Feb 2003 and Sept 2003 that are still chugging away at work digitising lecture recordings etc and they all without exception are going strong. 4 years and counting.
All these iMacs use laptop components like the current iMac for everything except the hard disk, which like the current iMac is a 3.5″ desktop-class hard drive.
I will however admit that the number of old Windows PCs that are still useful is of course far lower – no 7 year old 400MHz PC that I know of can run Vista for example!
-Mart
Gee whiz. Two years? My previous laptop lasted 4 years — then the hard drive failed and I decided to just get a new laptop instead of replacing. I had NO problems for those 4 years. Current laptop has lasted me 3 years so far, with no problems (other than being shipped with a bad hard drive). Am I really that lucky? I haven’t been that careful with them either…jamming them in my backpack to bounce on my back or thigh as I walk across campus to and from class, taking them out, putting them back in, jamming them into suitcases and overhead bins to fly across the country. The exterior is pretty banged up, but that’s it.
These are NOT macs, either. But I’m drooling over the new imac…that’s how I found this article in the first place. Lots o’ help, it was.
@tom: As if I’d put a 1TB drive in a slab. What a waste of $450. You fail.
@wee bee: Your grammar sucks. Fail.
@Pietro Watanabe: A-ha! You DO admit breakdowns primarily occur in the first 2 years! I win. You fail.
@Rick: I like your comment best of all because you called your Mac a toilet seat. I can’t argue with that. And thanks for commenting on our crappy web site. It just proves I own you. Fail.
@Arnold Ziffel: You nailed it when you mentioned your PowerMac G4. That’s a great box – said sincerely.
@Tony Ramirez: Again, a mention of a decent G4 machine. And did you realize my “intense research” comment was sarcasm? Did ANY OF YOU realize that? Guess not.. fail.
@Matt: There you go with OS comparisons. Shaddup. Fail.
@Michael Fischer: Yes, the pro models are better, hands down. The corporate mucky-mucks don’t get them usually because there isn’t enough ROI in them. Good comment on your part. You do not fail.
@ardaz: CLASSIC Mactard comment by using a personal attack. That was some funny stuff. EPIC FAIL. HAHAHAHAHA..
@Jim: Another classic Mactard attack. Not as good as ardaz’s, though.. you need to step up the insulting a bit. Keep it up though. I give you a semi-epic fail.
@Sticks: Your comment was good until you called them “lappies”. Do you put Hello Kitty stickers on your computers too? I bet you do. Super-fail. Not epic fail like ardaz, but I’ll give it a super.
@PF: The iMac actually isn’t overpriced. It’s priced better than the XPS One – but it doesn’t mean you get your money’s worth. Good comment. You do not fail.
@Scott Schuckert: You use a laptop IN THE HOT TUB? HOW FRICKIN’ RETARDED ARE YOU?! Sheez..
@AM: Yes you have a decent G4. The G4′s from Apple were great machines. Apple has no “middle ground” for an in-between computer option. Wouldn’t it be great if they had something between the iMac and the Mac Pro in a box form with separate monitor that isn’t a mini? One can only hope..
@George: No mention of company = company doesn’t exist. Fail. Try again.
@Will Cushman: Man, why’d you have to sound all professional like that.. I can’t put a fail on you.. darn it.
@filecat13: Comment is too long.. hurts my eyes. Fail.
@Ax: Get rid of your G3′s, sheesh.. at least run a G4.
@Scott: If you want evidence, tour any computer recycling facility warehouse. You’ll see pallet after pallet stacked six-foot-high of busted laptops and Macbooks under 2 years old.
@Martin Pilkington: Yes.
@Robert Davis: VERY GOOD POINT about the Sales Force people. Awesome point, in fact. They absolutely murder laptops. That’s real-world corporate use. Good comment. I score you as a win.
@Jake: The optical drive is one. See above comments.
@SuperMatt: That’s a horrendous amount of cash for an extended warranty. It shouldn’t cost that much.
@Martin Hill: The most important point you make is the end-of-lease cycle at the 2/3 year mark where the computers are replaced. That’s how computers are supposed to be replaced properly in a environment where they’re used heavily. Good comment.
Yo, Menga….I’ll speculate that plenty of posters here (like me) use OSX and Windows every day. Your scatter-gun attempted smackdown of a bunch of responses that exposed your anecdotal opinion was very weak. Several of us actually have responsibility for selecting and setting up enterprise desktops and laptops…we see how durability is largely a functionn of how a user treats his issued machine.
Getting back to the alleged title of your article, the Dell XPS series has a lot going for it; but if you need or want to run both XP/Vista and OSX, then the Dell is not a viable option. Also, when you objectively compare the software that is bundled and integrated in both systems, the iMac kicks butt and takes names….something you would know if you had spent any significant hands-on time actually using a current Mac.
Based on personal experience I have to agree. I bought a Power Mac second-hand 5 years ago and it’s been running fault-free as the main workhorse in my graphics design studio. In the same period of time, I have had 3 laptops from Apple and they have all had problems.
One thing in common: they all had hard disk failures within the first year. My 12-inch Powerbook has had the hard disk fail twice, and this third one is already acting all wonky. So the suggestion to use a laptop (in Apple’s case: a notebook, as their machines sure aren’t laptoppable) as a desktop replacement is suspect.
Secondly, “slabs” as you call them have inherently worse value for money. They are not faster than notebooks, and are not as expandable or easily repairable as desktops. So they exist in a weird state of limbo only occupied by Mactards who have trouble just trying to configure software RAID (just a comment I happened to read on another site just now).
Thirdly, I know two small-time ad agencies who’d bought iMacs because they couldn’t afford Power Macs for their designers. 5 machines bought, 3 went back for repairs within 2 months. In a real heavy-duty work environment, cramming hot components into a tight space is not a very good idea, to put it mildly.
That said, I love my G4 tower. Had a G5 tower for a while, but that also developed problems, with the mainboard. So I sold it off.
Give me a tower for real work and an Eee laptop for mobility any day.
Both my son and I are using 2yr old 12″ PowerBook G4 1.5 machines. The hard drives (Toshiba and Hitachi) are faultless, as are the Hitachi and Western Digital external Firewire hard drives we both use to create bootable backup clones of our laptop environment (another Mac advantage, by the way).
That said, failing hard drives are a crap shoot on any system, and don’t just happen to ‘mactards’ or ‘wintrolls.’
Sorry, no objectivity here, nothing to see, move along.
Nothing better than a twenty year old form factor, big ‘ol ugly bread box that makes it easy for “ham fisted” computer repairmen to fish around in while they install cheap no-name hard drives and generic memory in their customer’s machines at $100 per hour.
Hey, what’s with the appropriating of the —tard suffix? Seems like the PC weenie boys just LUUUUVE using that term. I guess they all were reading the Fake Steve Jobs blog, from which that originated, and have now turned it around against Mac users. Oh well, we all know there’s no originality there. Just look at Windows, or better yet the Dell XPS!
I just gotta say, what a load of crap, referring to the all in one haters. I keep hearing all these fools go on about how they can do all this upgrading, and that’s why the big box is so great, but in fact, nobody (save the ubernerds) really does much of that, simply because it’s cheaper to buy a whole new machine every three or so years, as opposed to nickel and dimeing yourself to death replacing motherboards, hard drives, video boards etc. The average user never even changes the OS that the box originally shipped with! Delude yourselves if you must, but the old three piece clunker is a thing of the past, the all in one computers are today’s machines. They are fast, compact and durable.
Frankly, Mossberg said it better.
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/
Re the optical drive: I’m trying to find evidence that slot-loaders don’t last as long as tray-loaders. Can you point me to some?
Jeeze Menga, that has got to be the weakest response to criticism I have ever read. When I first read it I thought it was some kid trying to be a smart arse but, I mean bloody hell, from soemone paid to write. man that’s weak.
I have to agree with Matt there! A shockingly poor retort from Menga. Im sure he must have paid some school kid to come up with that trot.
Anyway, whoever is reponsible for allowing Menga to publish an article on this site should take a good look at themselves. Terrible usage of some words (“tard”, “retarded” ) by the author really should be looked at by this website’s owners/administrators.
I have nothing to add about the author’s argument, whats the point. Never argue with an idiot people, they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience everytime.
Joe
Gee, I must be doing something wrong. My sage G3 iMac is running Tiger 4.11 (slowly tho) and still working and the Powerbook G3 Pismo that I recycled is running Tiger 4.11 and is over 7 years old. If you want I can try to break them………
“Let me pull you up to the tree before you drown..” –the monkey referring to the fish.
Talk about having a narrow perspective mister nerd.
Article has little value.
Man you are full of shit. I know HW engineers that have designed all-in-one PCs and many of the parts they choose are of at least as good quality as the desktop parts. This is because the BOM cost of the average AIO or laptop is higher than the average desktop. Therefore they have more freedom to choose parts. The most likely reason that laptops have a lower average life span is because of theft or owner mistreatment and that is the end of the story.
I love comment posters that swear like teenagers, say “I know engineers” (yeah, right) and then make a futile attempt to sound intelligent afterwards. Louis, you are an absolute riot. I needed a good laugh this morning and for that I thank you. You rock. Keep up the good work. The next time you post, throw in a few WTFs and LOLs. Always a good crowd pleaser.
The hard drive failure will end when solid state disks come into play. That is what I am waiting for, a drop in price for these things. This should end a lot of headaches for users who think they computer is junk, only to find that the hard drive is the culprit, and the rest of the computer works fine.