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Whether you like them or not, Dell have been working hard to reinvent themselves lately with some very interesting and exciting releases. We have reviewed many of their products in the last 6 months and have often been impressed – particularly with their screen technology and Dell Streak smartphone running Google Android.
Today we are looking at their Inspiron One (All In One) 23 system with a mid range configuration at only £679 inc vat – this features a 1080p touch screen panel and a THX Certified sound system.
Will this make an ideal Christmas present for yourself, a partner or a family member? Read our analysis today to make an informed decision.
The system we are reviewing is based around the 32nm Intel Core i3-370M processor which is clocked at 2.4ghz and only consumes a maximum of 35W of power. AMD supply the graphics, with a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD5470 onboard, which should be capable of delivering decent real world performance. Rounding out the specification is a 750GB hard drive and a generous 4GB of DDR3 1333mhz memory.
We have spent the last two weeks testing this system under a variety of conditions and today we present our indepth analysis.
Dell supply the system in a plain brown box with their badge on the side, as expected. The Inspiron is protected between two heavy duty blocks of styrofoam. We have never had a system arrive damaged from Dell, so the packaging works.
Inside we have a comprehensive bundle, covering a variety of demands. Lets focus on a few of the items.
Dell include one of their wireless keyboards, which I have used before with the Zino HD system – I found it to be a really good board. The keyboard is responsive, and there is an intuitive 360 roll controller at the top for volume control.
The wireless mouse partners up with the keyboard and runs from the same USB based dongle system. Like the keyboard I found this very pleasing to use and while obviously not as impressive as a high end model, is more than sufficient for gaming and other every day duties.
Dell supply a very attractive IR remote which can be used for media playback via Windows Media Center. This works well and we experienced no issues throughout 14 days of testing.
Dell have designed the system so the power is handled by an external adapter, therefore ensuring the chassis can be kept as small as possible, with one less heat source inside.
The Dell Inspiron One is clearly Dells take on Apple's popular iMac and we think it looks extremely attractive. There is a 22.5 inch 16:9 display (1920×1080 – 1080p) which has a glossy screen coating.
The Dell logo takes centerstage underneath the panel and we can see the almost carbon fibre style speaker system on the surrounding bezel.
The speaker system is THX approved and on the right is a Core i3/Windows 7 sticker. These can be removed if you feel they ruin the appearance of the product. I probably would remove them myself, if I was buying one.
At the top is a 1.3 mega pixel camera which supplies decent quality images to your friends and family.
The rear features a gun metal finish with a durable plastic/glass stand which can be tilted through various angles. It is a lot stronger than it looks in the images above.
The rear houses 4 USB 2.0 ports, a gigabit lan connection. IR receiver, power connector and coaxial connector for tv tuner support.
On the right side (from bottom-up), is the power button, microphone, headphone, USB 2.0 x 2, card reader and volume control buttons. On the left side is the DVD RW drive, which you can upgrade to a BluRay drive if you pay extra.
The Inspiron One 23 is an attractive system which make a perfect partner for a bedroom or office environment.
It only requires the removal of two screws at the bottom of the rear chassis section to open the Inspiron One 23. All of the sections are neatly arranged into compartments, seperating the heat sources and ensuring an even spread of airflow.
All of the cabling is routed carefully between clasps, underneath an internal metal surround.
The 750GB hard drive is enclosed in a vented chassis which can opened for an upgrade/replacement later. Dell have installed the drive with the rear facing outwards to ensure that cool air reaches the components.
There is a fan placed centrally in the upper sector of the unit, to ensure that air is sucked in and then dispersed in a sideways manner, cooling all components.
The optical drive is at top right position (left, if looking from the front obviously). Sata and power cables are against carefully routed and held in place by clamps. It is a very neat, clean build and we found no build issues at all.
The CPUz and GPUz screenshots show the hardware configuration which we detailed earlier. It is worth pointing out that for £180 extra Dell will upgrade the system to a Core i5 460 processor which is clocked at 2.53ghz. They also enhance the system with another 2GB of ram and improve storage capacity by 250GB to 1TB. Whether you need these is very much a personal decision.
Dell have installed an interactive Dock utility with the Inspiron One range of computers. This serves as a central place for frequently used programs. It is obviously rather like the Apple Dock and in this case serves a double purpose, as you can operate it with your finger via the touchscreen. We delve later into the touchscreen aspects more later in our gaming section.
All aspects of the interface can be operated with the touch screen and below we have included a short video showing the installation of WinRar without a mouse.
As you can see it is extremely easy to operate the touchscreen. Sometimes it is hard to work out if you need a single or a double click, but after a few hours of use it becomes almost second nature.
We can't say that we hold much value in the Windows 7 inbuilt rating system, however it is interesting to include as a quick, and somewhat limited overview of the system.
There are plenty of programs installed, some of which are needed to control various aspects of this specific system. We would immediately remove McAfee from the Inspiron and install something more light weight, such as AVG or Avast, but generally the install isn't actually too bad. This is sold as a versatile ‘all round' system so we do expect a slightly higher level of software to be pre-installed.
The bios is a pretty standard affair and has nothing noteworthy to report on. This isn't sold as a dedicated enthusiast gaming system so the settings preconfigured are exactly as we left them.
Synthetic testing is not a massively important aspect of a system review, but we feel it rounds out the overall analysis to give a specific overview of key strengths and weaknesses. Before we get into the real world testing we gave the system a run through in SiSoft Sandra. We will compare against several other systems we reviewed in the past, the AMD based Dell Zino HD and the Intel Atom based ASrock ION3D.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
Performance is strong, especially for this target sector. The Intel Core i3 processors deliver plenty of punch for the modest asking price. Memory bandwidth isn't quite as good as the AMD Zino HD we reviewed last month.
PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.
A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.
From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.
The Intel powered Dell Inspiron One (AIO) 23 scores much higher than the AMD powered Zino HD 410 which we reviewed a while ago. The differences are noticeable, showing the power of the budget Core i3 platform.
3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. We’ve been making 3DMark for over 10 years, with each new edition using the latest 3D technology to determine real-world performance.
A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.
3DMark is widely used by the PC industry, press and media as well as individual users and gamers, for comparing performance levels between whole systems or even specific components.
The processor puts in a good showing, however in DX10 the modest AMD HD5470 is clearly lacking a little horsepower. We will investigate this further shortly as synthetic testing only shows a part of the overall picture.
A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance so we used two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to score the 750GB 7,200 rpm drive which Dell have included in this system build.
Drive performance overall is quite good, considering it is a mechanical drive. Both benchmarks report between 90-100mb/s transfer speeds. Adding an SSD would certainly help boost performance rates, but we feel for a single drive system like this that storage capacity is more important.
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It's completely free.
The Dell Inspiron One (AIO) 23 is a better machine for rendering than the AMD powered Zino HD. Neither would be an ideal first choice, but you could certainly play with more modest projects on this system if required.
Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our Bluray and conversion tests. This software fully supports GPU acceleration and while the system we received for review wasn’t supplied with a BluRay player we have a USB 2.0 powered unit at hand to measure system performance.
Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is one of the finest solutions for the Blu-Ray experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the Bluray Disc of Avatar, one of our favourite sci-fi films in recent years.
Average load is around 10% throughout which means that this system is extremely capable at multitasking even while watching HD movies.
We recorded CPU time across a section of playback time, the processor is supported by the graphics card which helps raise overall system responsiveness while lowering the CPU demand.
Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.
With acceleration on the system reported a 18 percent CPU demand which is the lowest we have tested yet of our ‘all in one' system reviews. The Core i3 is obviously the most powerful processor in this line up which helps reduce the percentage utilisation.
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.
Now you can easily playback and display your favorite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.
New and Improved Features
- Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
- Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
- Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
- Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
- Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
- Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.
For our testing today we are converting a 1.1GB 720p MKV file to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.
This works out at 393% time reduction, or an approximate conversion rate of around 4x real time.
We are now going to test the USB 2.0 speed, so we used the fastest drive we have, the Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB, which is an Toshiba based SSD product within a USB 3.0 capable enclosure.
Obviously as there are no USB 3.0 ports on the Dell Inspiron we won't be reaching anywhere near the limitations of the drive, but at least we will be sure that the final results are due to the ports, not the source.
We used a folder 80.2GB folder of Steam Games – moving it between the Kingston SSD to the internal 7,200 rpm 750GB drive.
USB 2.0 performance is solid, and much in line with what we would expect. peaking just under 35 MB/s and averaging between 27MB/s and 32 MB/s. Obviously with a massive folder of mixed file sizes the speeds drop, but this is to be expected, especially with lower seek times on mechanical drives.
Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in the United States; it launched November 20 in Europe. It builds upon the cooperatively-focused gameplay of the original and uses Valve’s proprietary Source engine, the same game engine used in Left 4 Dead. The game made its world premiere at E3 2009 with a trailer during the Microsoft press event.
In a similar fashion to the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale.
We settled on the configurations below for two resolutions (720p and 1080p). These settings were ‘playable’ at each resolution, without dipping into the sub 25fps zone.
Performance is solid considering the fairly modest AMD graphics solution installed. We enjoyed gaming on this system even though a few settings were dialled down to compensate.
Tom Clancy H.A.W.X. 2 is the followup to the successful and popular H.A.W.X.
Use all your skills to command an astonishing array of cutting-edge technology and overwhelming firepower, delivered by tomorrow's finest combat aircraft. From the F-35's vectored thrust capability to the ultra-secret Enhanced Reality System, you'll light up the skies with a suite of experimental technology available only to a chosen few.
Texture quality was set to high, with terrain tessellation disabled. All other settings were set to low or disabled. Screenshots below detail the settings.
The results were surprisingly good, and the graphic quality was also reasonably impressive, especially considering many of the settings were on low. Obviously if you play this on a high end system first you would notice differences, but generally we found this enjoyable.
Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.
Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.
This engine is no longer that demanding for high end hardware, but for a system such as this we had to settle on DX9 mode with 720p resolution. All settings were set to high.
Performance was reasonably good and I let several family members play the game, people who haven't previously experienced it on a high end system. They all enjoyed it and felt that the game looked great.
Obviously a huge draw of this system is the touch screen interface and it would be remiss of us to not cover it. We showed earlier how easy it is to use when installing programs and working with the interface on a day to day basis.
We have therefore included several videos of games in action on this page. I loved playing classic titles such as Plants V Zombies and Puzzle Quest on this system as it worked in a similar fashion to my iPad, just bigger.
Gamers who mainly play first person shooters will obviously not glean as much from a touch screen, but it is worth checking out.
As you can see games like this really come into their own with a touch screen and although its useless for First person shooters, I found it added a lot to the enjoyment of puzzle and strategy titles.
The only issue of course is that after a session of gaming the screen ends up looking like a dogs dinner. So we advise you to keep a cleaning cloth handy !
The onboard sound system is impressive, although we find the THX certification (Trustudio PC) a little bewildering. Sure, its impressive for an onboard solution, but any half decent dedicated sound system will output higher quality sound. We used our little HD camera to highlight how good the sound quality is, even under these less than perfect conditions.
Today we measuring the power drain at the wall. We normally remove the screen power drain from these readings but as this is an ‘all in one' unit it obviously has to be included.
We measured the system in idle state, when watching an HD movie and when fully loaded gaming.
These power drain results are extremely impressive for a fully system with screen, highlighting the efficiency of the AMD and Intel combination.
We felt it was important to spend a little time discussing the quality of the touchscreen which Dell have incorporated into the Inspiron One 23 system. Dell have earned a good reputation for creating some of the finest screens on the market and our previous technical testing certainly backs this up.
This panel delivers a solid set of results under our testing procedures, with very little, if any artifacting and refresh blur. Colours are reasonably true, although we noticed a slight tint of red when measured with our LaCie analysis gun. This would be easily rectified with some tweaking via the Windows software and would probably not even be noticeable to most people. The screen definition is excellent and HD video is rendered in a very realistic manner.
There is a noticeable, but not intrusive level of shift and bleeding when testing black definition, with the usual leaks on the sides and corners of the panel. This is not really noticeable when viewing material on the screen and is one of the better results we have seen for a touchscreen. The response time is also quite fast and I noticed no blurring under real world conditions.
White purity is good, with only a 5% off shift balance on the side areas. This rises to around 13% at the corners, although this would not be noticeable under most conditions. HD content looked very vibrant and clean with only slight leaks on the edges noticeable under pure white settings. The bottom corners had a slightly higher leak percentage than the top areas.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.
Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinebench together.
The system maintains very good temperatures and we never recorded any higher than 66c from the processor, even when loaded for several hours at 100%.
The graphics solution peaked around 75c under Furmark and normally between 66-68c when gaming.
Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The system is very quiet under general use, hovering between 30 and 33 dBa. Under strictly forced conditions we managed to get the fans fully loaded and we recorded around 41dBa of noise, which is clearly noticeable, but not really indicative of a real world situation. We would class this system as quiet and not at all intrusive.
Out of all the systems we have reviewed this year, the Dell Inspiron One (AIO) 23 is actually the one which has impressed me most. Although they are unlikely to admit it, Dell have clearly taken the concept of the Apple iMac as the foundation for this computer and have added their own personal touch to the finished product.
When Dell called me a few weeks ago to offer me the system for review I found my mental state somewhere between curiosity and skepticism. The only time I have considered using a touchscreen has been with my iPad or in the doctors waiting surgery for check in purposes. I certainly don't want fingerprints all over the monitor I use for work during the day.
I wouldn't say my opinion on this has changed completely, but I have seen my (technologically inept) parents use the system and feel immediately more at home than when using a mouse. A young child might also find this computer a much more interactive way of dealing with media games and content, although you may end up cleaning jam and milk from the screen on a regular basis.
From my own perspective, I used a mouse and keyboard most of the time, however I did enjoy playing strategy games such as Plants V Zombies and Puzzle Quest in the evening via the touchscreen. It was like using a 23 inch iPad, which is certainly not a bad feeling. Being the anal retentive person I am however, I always needed a high quality cloth at hand to clean up after my mess.
On a hardware level the Intel Core i3 processor and AMD graphics solution are a well balanced combination. The system is responsive and very capable of handling an array of tasks that we threw at it. Over the course of weeks, I made sure to try everything I could. Rendering is a little painful, but anyone seriously into this sector will already have a Core i7 970 or 980x. One of these processors costs more than this system combined, so as always, it depends on the depth of your bank balance.
As an all round computer for a family environment, The Inspiron One (AIO) 23 is as good a system as I have used. There are no weaknesses and the screen technology really will attract family members who don't normally touch a computer.
You can customise your own at Dell Inspiron One (All In One) 23, over here.
KitGuru says: A computer for the whole family? Look no further.
Christ that must have taken quite a long time to handle that review Zardon. I thought this system would have sucked, but the information, testing and videos really painted a good all round picture. Its really very impressive. id go for this over an Imac anyday. (well apart from the 2560 resolution version!)
PLANTS V ZOMBIES OMFG ! I need to get this machine, just for that awesome game !!!
You seem to like Dell products here, ive never owned one, but some of your reviews make me consider some of their products. this looks really great, have to say.
This is like a cheap imac with a touchscreen. cant be bad to that. sound quality really impressed me from that video even via a little camera.
I read another review of this last week and was sold then, im doubly sold now. just need to get the cash together for my son in the new year. its not too expensive really, but funds are tight at this time of the year. he will love it. great article thanks.
That was such a great read, seriously. I dont think I could live with a touchscreen, i get annoyed with even a hair on my screen, nevermind slimmy fingerprints all over it.
Hey reviewer, clean your hands, that screen was minging ! 😉
I always buy Dell laptops. they might be bland, but they last forever. well mine always have.
Well I gotta point out that I dont think ive seen Dell ever get a bad review here, but after reading this, it would be hard to say it sucked, so much evidence in favour of the product. I think it looks really good, but it will take more than this to make me love dell. nice review however.
Heh, this is great for a family. I could see the whole family sitting around this having a laugh at the weekends. Nice one Dell thumbs up.
Hey what handheld camera are you using? thats some serious sharpness considering. I need one of them for my own projects. what is it ? pic info shows a Nikon D300S on the images? you using that for videos? if so, im shit outta luck, that costs a fortune.
Dell normally make me go ‘bleh’, but they might have a winner here. looks very well priced. hard to beat that for the price. core i3 would be enough really, 180 quid extra for the i5 and more memory seems pointless.
Very interesting and well documented article indeed. As Dell agents didn’t know, maybe you could tell me which Inspiron One 23 models have the HDMI/VGA/composite ports, please. Only the £879 one? I believe mentioning it in the article would be very useful (at least it would help me very much).
Thank you.
Very good review .
I appreciate the work done.
I have a small doubt regarding this product,
Is Dell AIO useful for softwares like Auto Cad , Solid Works, and MATLAB