DaveF

Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

Walt Mossberg, a largely pro-Mac columnist, has an interesting review of the new Dell XPS One. He gives it high marks as a Windows-based system that clearly is meant to compete with the iMac. It looks to surpass the iMac in some hardware regards: hopefully this will push Apple towards ever improved refinement.

What most surprised me was this statement:

So, it turns out, the iMac is not "overpriced", as even the manufacturing geniuses at Dell (said without sarcasm) won't sell an all-in-one PC for less than Apple.

Ronald Epstein

Re: Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

Dave,

Saw a review in this month's PC MAGAZINE.

They absolutely did rate the Dell higher than the Apple which
was surprising. I believe the pricetag was was about $700 more
for the Dell, not surprising since it comes with a Blu-ray drive.

The only initial impression I got was that it wasn't as attractive
as the Apple iMac.

I am sure Apple will up the ante very soon.

NOTE: Watch the actual video. Mr. Mossberg still
recommends the iMac over this Dell for software reasons. He
prefers Leopard over Vista. Also prefers the Apple name.

Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com
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Carlo Medina

Re: Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

The hardware certainly does look nice. But I can now say definitively that the Dell will have one big disadvantage: Vista

And I don't mean that in a bashing Windows way. I hadn't used Vista before, and am an XP power user. This Christmas I visited family in NorCal and helped work on 2 of their new computers that had problems with peripherals (all in one printer/scanner/faxes). Both machines had Vista.

I hated it. I hated how it thinks it's smarter than you. I hated how it changed the way to do a lot of things. It was a frustrating 3 hour experience (90 minutes on each PC). Even when XP came out, I realized it was a big upgrade over 98/ME/2000. Vista is, in my opinion, a huge step backwards. And all of the bloatware that these manufacturers put on their PCs, in addition to the bloat of Vista (I mean Vista actually grades your PC's hardware for goodness sakes!) really turned me off.

My desktop PC (an XP machine) that I built 3 years ago is ready to be upgraded. I may build a new XP machine or go with a Mac desktop (Mac Pro or iMac after their next revisions). One thing I am 100% sure of is that I will not be building a Vista machine

I agree with Ron. I'm glad Dell put out this machine, especially with the high-def drive, so that will force Apple to up the ante.

Ronald Epstein

Re: Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

I have used Vista. I can say from experience that Leopard
is a significant improvement.

Everyone has obviously heard how many people who tried
Vista are now reverting back to XP. Sounds like a huge step
backwards for Microsoft.

Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com
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Darren Lewis

Re: Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

It was hard to see exactly what the Dell looked like as the video showcased it against a black background. Looking at the Dell website, I'm not too sure about the design. I don't like the speakers stuck on the sides. They seem to be really out of place.

I'm sure that the Dell a very good all-in-one PC, but at the end of the day you can't run Mac OS-X on it. It would be interesting to see how it ran a modern Linux distro though.

Having used windows 3.1/95/98/2000, WinXP, Win Vista, Linux (various flavours incl Fedora and Ubuntu), and now Mac OS-X Tiger, I'm more happier than ever with Mac OS-X. I really can't see me ever going back to Windows.

DaveF

Re: Serious competition for the iMac, from Dell

I've not seen this Dell. But it's nice to see improved design from Apple gong over to the PC side. And hopefully some of the improvements from Dell, like the integrated card reader, will be taken up by Apple.

I'm ever more of the opinion that this sort of all-in-one, space-saving design is an excellent choice for the typical home user. Most people don't upgrade; but desk space is often at a premium.

And honestly, Apple needs competition. As much as I enjoy my Mac, I see laziness and poor design design decisions creeping in. They need to be kept on their toes to keep the software and hardware quality high.