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Dell's New X18: 5 Pounds, 18 Inches
MojoKid writes "Dell recently combined two trending PC design styles into a single system and called it the XPS 18 Portable All-In-One Desktop. The machine has all the power of an AIO desktop system and some of the portability of a tablet. To be clear, Dell isn't suggesting you'll want to tote this thing across town in ways that you might use an iPad. It's portable in that you can snatch up the 18.4-inch Full HD display from your home office and take it to the living room to switch gears from Google Docs to gaming with the kids, or take it upstairs for some late night surfing before bed. ... The main attraction, however, is that the PC itself is a portable display featuring an 18.4-inch IPS panel with a 1920x1080 resolution and full touch support. Performance-wise the XPS 18 holds its own versus mainstream all-in-one touch PCs, but with added ability to pick the 5 pound system up go virtually anywhere with it on a moment's notice."
Really, its the worst of all worlds.
And I aim to please!
Haven't we had similar crap for a while now? What does this do that makes it newsworthy?
I'm going to try one out. The home computer form factor is going to change. I have tried the Asus Transformer and like it. The removable keyboard works great but to be a primary home computer it needs to have a larger display and larger keyboard. I was hoping Asus they would release something in the 15-17 inch range in the Transformer series but I don't think that has happened yet. The Dell XPS18 is a bit larger than I was thinking but it is getting decent reviews so I'll give it a shot ... it will be my first shot at Win8 too (sigh). Sure it isn't a lightweight but its no Sony Tap 20 @ 11 Lbs.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
5 pounds, 18 inches baby
apples price for the same thing $1800 base
posting every tiny rev of every model of laptop/phone/tablet from every manufacturer?
This seems to be a mediocre, unnecessarily page-broken review of a machine with mediocre hardware specs. Did I miss anything important?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
18" desktop screens are something from a decade or so ago--why go back?
I've always thought it was a bad idea to build the computer into the screen. The problem is that when the computer becomes outdated, you have to dump a perfectly good screen. I have LCD screens that I've used for many years with different computers as I upgrade the hardware.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Since the PC makers have now given early signs of freaking out about the tablet, can we expect more Frankenstein 8 pound, Mac monitor shaped, Frankenstein, 20 inch screen, Frankenstein, detachable flexi-keyboard, Frankenstein, rubberized to protect damage, Frankenstein, Windows 8, Frankenstein computers that cost $1200 and have an appeal to the consumer that Gasohol did in the 1970s as a replacment for Gasoline?
Sounds like Dell has given birth to an abomination.
Have gnu, will travel.
We've been trying this with laptops for over 10 years now, and it never really took, why do they think that it's going to work any better for a "Tablet" now?
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
apples price for the same thing $1800 base
...and its hurting them across the board. Ironically the exception was the launch of the original ipad which started at $500 the device closest to this one...and (stupidly) its latest model is still that price.
Obviously you could choose an Android device and cut another $200.
People forget what relatively good value the iPad was for a launch device.
This seems to be a mediocre, unnecessarily page-broken review of a machine with mediocre hardware specs. Did I miss anything important?
Yes using Auto-pager. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autopager/ I don't know if there is an equivalent in other browsers, but it automatically loads next pages when you reach the end of a page...and I rarely get this problem of page-breaks. It used to work on the mobile firefox version.
with a detached keyboard & mouse... And a smaller screen to boot! (My laptop screen is larger!)
Gee, the joy of juggling N unconnected items. (Screen/computer, mouse, keyboard... Plus headphones, plus .... Does this thing even have a battery?) Does it come with a box to carry everything around in?
Remember not to block the vents (airholes) on any of these devices! Yeah, that ought to work well in a bed.... At least with a laptop I can put it on a hard surface, one of those breakfast-in-bed trays, and angle the screen appropriately... (Something else to add to the box...)
If the summary was unclear to you, what this is is actually a screen with a computer built into it.
You can use it as a regular desktop computer by using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, or you can use it as a tablet.
It wouldn't be a bad idea if there was a good operating system that worked well as a desktop and as a tablet too.
We were using the tablet to demo our website, since a solid wifi signal or internet connectivity is not guaranteed at these types of shows, we have to rely on a VM running a LAMP server on the computer. Even with only a CLI version of CentOS running using 1GB of ram, and minimal processing specs, it caused the system to run at a crawl. It was painful and very disappointing. Needless to say, we returned the machine and went with the Lenovo Yoga 13 IdeaPad instead, and it did the job.
5 lbs, 18 inches?
Sounds like the ladies are talking about my...
So for the average Slashdotter, that would mean:
Mom's basement->Mom's basement->Mom's basement
I don't see the portability value there.
For me, personally, it would mean more like:
My sofa->My sofa->My sofa
It cuts down on my commuting, so it must be good for the Global Carbon Warming Footprint, or something like that.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Because typical users use one app at a time, and 18" is plenty for web browsing, email and word processing. Most web designs don't take advantage of widths in excess of 960 pixels anyway.
They brag about the display but it is only 1920x1080. We did better than that with CRTs in that size range over a decade ago. I know I'm not the only person who has been waiting for the resolutions to finally start taking off.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Mine is 5lbs 2oz and 19 inches. Oh, wait, they're talking about portable desktops. My bad.
So.... this thing has an 18 inch display with the same resolution as my phone?
Sorry. Resfail.
Why is it that we seem to have gone backwards in this way? My Dell laptop from like 2001 or 2003 or something had a higher resolution than this 2013 thing. And many are even worse, like 768 vertical. We've been madly going backwards.
Because lugging a 22" around makes you look like a tool?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Does it have UEFI DRM?
Because it's not a desktop. It's a giant portable (laptop/tablet/whatever - in this case, tablet) which can be set up on a desk. The common term for this class of device is "desktop replacement" and implies high-end laptop specs plus a large screen, intended to remove the need for an actual desktop while still being something you can put in a backpack or briefcase and take on a plane, or remove from your desk and take to a meeting, or walk across the office to show something to a co-worker, or take to lunch so you can continue working while you eat if you're in a time crunch, or... you get the idea. They're popular among college students as well; they don't take up much space in a classroom or dorm room, but have generous screens (compared to the typical 12-16" laptop screen).
My last computer (lasted me 3.5 years as my primary machine) was an 18" desktop replacement laptop. It weighed almost 9lb (far more than this thing), lacked a touchscreen, and had poor specs by desktop standards. On the other hand, it could run for a few hours (typically 2-3 real-world usage, which gets you through a class or two no sweat) on battery, was a trivial item to move when going home for the holidays or moving to a new apartment, and was fantastic for LAN parties.
This is just the logical extension of that trend. Touchscreen but no built-in keyboard to reduce weight (although you can of course grab any bluetooth or small USB keyboard to use with it). Battery life is nothing special but it's not *supposed* to be an all-day portable. Screen is huge for a portable but nothing exciting for a desktop, except that it's intended to be placed nearer to you on the desk and still has great resolution, so the effective viewing area and viewing angle are the same (and it's easier to use touch when you want to.
It's a niche market, but if I was looking for another machine like my old laptop, I'd be very interested.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Why is some mediocre product launch even news on Slashdot? Maybe I'm jaded on this, but it's not exactly new technology. Haven't tablet pc's running a Windows OS been around since windows XP was new? I can hear 2002 calling, they want their tablet back. I can't see anything remarkable about this. This is not news, this is advertising. What blows my mind is that some people post like they're excited about it. It makes me question giving up Slashdot altogether.
I like the concept of a portable pc vs. a laptop. I don't travel as much as I used to and didnt want to spend 1500 on a decent laptop. Instead, I bought a 1080p 22 inch acer led, a itx fm2 motherboard, 16gb ram, AMD 4ghz 4 core APU, a ssd, and a 1tb hard drive all in compact mini-itx case. All of this plus a keyboard fit in a large backpack. Now it is heavy, takes a few minutes to assemble and disassemble, and does not have battery backup but I feel the increased productivity and price per performance is well worth it.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Maybe some kind of car joke will be deemed funnier at Slashdot...
How about: That's one big stick shift...
Nah, probably not.
I for one welcome the Mega-Phablet
The Start button on these tablets has the Windows logo for the same reason that the Super key between Ctrl and Alt on a standard PC keyboard has the Windows logo. Yes, Microsoft requires it.
It also means you can't easily pick the computer up and take it to another room, or put it in the car to take to another place, when you want.
To carry a game console into another room, you shut it down, disconnect the power and video cables, move it, connect the power and video to the other monitor, and turn it on. The procedure for a slim PC is no different, especially for a Wii-sized Mac mini or an Xbox 360-sized Acer or Gateway. But you're right that such a use case is often limited to 1920x1080.
In theory, subpixel rendering triples horizontal resolution, boosting 1920 pixels across to 5760. In practice, because of the low-pass filtering needed to avoid color fringing, it boosts perceived horizontal resolution by 50%, giving the equivalent of 2880x1080 for a 1080p monitor. It's analogous to how 480i is blurrier than 480p because of the filtering needed to avoid interline twitter. Because the vertical dimension has no subpixels (at least in monitors that don't pivot), it doesn't make smaller point sizes readable and thus doesn't help the user fit more text onto a monitor. Furthermore, a lot of frameworks appear to apply subpixel rendering only to text, not to bitmaps or vectors. Or has this changed on recent operating systems?
Bring it down to Windows 7, increase the RAM to 16 GB and make it a 1TB HD and I'm sold. For sure!!!!!
Small monitors are fine if you live alone. But they can be a pain for two to four people to fit around, which is why it is customary to watch movies on a larger monitor in the living room.
It's a good thing they've got a boatload of cash in the bank to live off of, because unless they can get with the times and convert themselves from a warehouse/assembly line company that's gone through a Bain-style outsource-gutting into a technology company that knows the difference between technology workers and forklift operators, they're done.
I'm waiting on them to bump to Haswell but I'm looking at this to replace my XPS 17. I'm a consultant and I usually just work off of an 13 inch ultrabook but I have times where I need something bigger for doing some of the analytical work. This would give me a larger screen and cut over 2 lbs at the same time.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
my ideal computer:
as many cores as I can cram in -
as much RAM as I can cram in -
as much SSD storage as I can cram in -
- to a walkman sized box
a couple USB ports, one commodity, easily replaced DC power port
(stay with me here)
an LED-based projector unit built-in, maybe an HDMI port to help things along should I feel the crushing need to plug in a TV or monitor (or I can't find sixty diagonal inches of blank wall, and really where does that happen??)
EITHER a USB or wireless mini keyboard OR a sideways-projecting laser "surface" keyboard built in.
The whole thing including wall wart could weigh the same if not less than a netbook - hell, it could be a project...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Why does timothy seem to get sucked into approving press releases more so than the others?
Like all other x86 and x86-64 PCs that ship with Windows 8, this one lets the PC's owner turn off Secure Boot. Microsoft requires this on x86 and x86-64.
I picked up a tricked-out Dell XPS 17 laptop a few years back. It worked great until it stopped recognizing my genuine Dell PS (just outside of my warranty period too... which SUCKED). That in turn caused the thing to run at a REDUCED clock speed and REFUSED to charge the battery. After a bit of digging, it turns out that there is a 1-wire protocol between the PS and the laptop. If that goes down, you are left with a slow running, paperweight. Dell doesn't like you running after-market PS on their devices, but also screws legitimate customers because the engineering behind it sucks.
The thing that irritates me the most is that I *know* this is just a software check in the BIOS. If they would release an unlocked BIOS, I'd be good to go.
Needless to say, I've never bought another Dell since then. I've been extremely happy giving ASUS my business instead.
I don't understand society. I bought a kick ass Samsung Series 7 gamer on Craigslist that I use for producing things that make me a bunch of money. I go all over hell's half acre with it. It weighs over 10 pounds. You know what I do to move it around? I put it in a bag and use my goddamn body to lift all 10+ pounds of it. I know it's no 5 pounds, but I manage. I survive. Maybe I'm special? Stronger than most?
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
My office was on the pre-launch wait list and we got some of the first XPS 18's Dell shipped. For your average person, with average computer needs, it's actually a really nice solution. First off, this really isn't meant to be used like a typical tablet, and is more of a "lap computer". The foldout legs allow it to work beautifully as a presentation piece (I've been using it to do R&D demos), and when reversed it actually makes a very nice tabletop touchscreen.
Is it the most powerful computer in the world? No. Mine is the i5 with 8Gb and it's performance is about average for a modern desktop computer. You're not going to run the latest games with everything cranked all the way up (the lack of discreet graphics puts an end to that), but my son plays SW:ToR and it averages about 40fps with everything turned up. That's nothing amazing, but it's really not bad either. You have to remember that the XPS 18 isn't meant to compete with powerful desktops...it's an Ultrabook in a tablet form factor, and it delivers Ultrabook level performance. When viewed through that lens, the performance is just fine. On the Windows partition, I've run everything from Office to Visual Studio with no real complaints.
The battery life on mine has been fairly good. From a full charge, it will do about 4.5-5 hours of light duty work (web browsing, etc) with the screen brightness turned down a bit. When my son was playing SW:TOR, he got about two hours out of it with the brightness all the way up. That's not the greatest, but you have to remember that we're talking about an 18" 1080 screen.
The portability is actually better than you would expect as well. You're not going to be walking around using it in your hand like an iPad, but it's very well balanced and much easier to handle than it looks. I purchased the messenger bag style case for mine, and usually carry it around like a laptop. When I'm moving around the room, I just tuck it under my arm, where it feels much lighter than its advertised 5lb weight. The back of the XPS 18 is metal, there's a heavy rubber bumper all the way around, and the "gator glass" screen is slightly flexible, which make it fairly durable. Mine has already taken a few falls without any marks or damage.
There are a couple of things I'm less than thrilled about. The power button is poorly placed and is exceptionally easy to accidentally press by hand. I had to reconfigure it in both Win8 and Xubuntu (yes, it dual boots just fine) to ignore inputs from the power button entirely. The foldout legs are well built and seem like they'll last a while, but Dell's folding mechanism uses a poorly designed magnetic holder. Basically they placed magnets on the back of the legs and then placed the regulatory stickers over the top of them to hold them in place. It took two weeks for the stickers on one to peel loose, after which the leg began flopping out on me. It was an easy fix with a bit of superglue, but it was a disappointing to see them cheap out on such a simple detail. Like others, I'm also disappointed in their choice to use a 5400RPM hard drive over a SSD, or even a 7200. The HDD is probably the biggest performance killer in the design. Finally, I'm irritated that, even after a month of tweaking, I haven't managed to get the touchscreen working in Xubuntu 12 LTS. I don't know what Dell did with the drivers for this thing, but none of the standard Linux touchscreen drivers work at all. Because of that, you can only use Linux on it when it's sitting at its base station with the physical keyboard and mouse. It makes a fine Xubuntu workstation when sitting on the base, but I'd really like to get the touchscreen working on it so I can use it as a tablet.
All in all though, I'm fairly satisfied with it. I'm not going to use it to replace my desktop, but since getting it a month ago I've nearly stopped using my previous tablet (Xoom) and have completely stopped carrying my Ultrabook around. My Apple wielding co-workers have largely reported the same. If Dell would offer this in a 15" version a
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
The "refreshments" must be amazing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's got *gasp* Windows 8!
For me, I'll take it if it has HDMI in, and 4k resolution (or something over 200 PPI if the screen is smaller). Oh, and for the hell of it, let's dream more and imagine a better GPU than that crappy Intel HD 4000.
Windows 8 is still the best OS for desktop and tablet usage. :P At least till Apple finally combines OSX and iOS.
It's 1920x1080, which is the same resolution of just about every monitor up to 27". So unless you want to step up to a rather bulky 27" (or 30"), there really isn't any benefit of the larger screen other than wasted desk space.
The return of the luggable ...
It runs Windoze
photosMy Photostream
"A weak dual core CPU that's more power hungry than an ARM CPU, a battery that'll last an hour in real-life conditions within a year"
`We ran our laptop battery rundown test on the system, and the XPS 18 returned a battery life of 4 hours 38 minutes.'
AccountKiller
> I can't understand why companies would want a Slashvertizement .. People only come to Slashdot for the comments since the news is available elsewhere.
It keeps the trolls away from the other grown-up forums ...
Lot of negative comments. But different products are for different people.
I have been asking for this. I want my 17" laptop to have a detachable screen. If this has a keyboard I can connect to, it is exactly what I want.
How much is that in ounces and yards?