Refurb Dell XPS 18 $799

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  cypher67 on 02/12/2014 - 11:07

  Never been a fan of these all in ones, not portable enough to be a laptop and not powerful enough to be a desktop. I couldnt imagine using this as a tablet, it is massive and heavy. You keep mentioning you want power yet you are just web browsing? Anything with a decicated SSD would feel faster than this, I cant think of any practical application for one of these sorry.

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  kfuerza on 02/12/2014 - 11:25

  +1

  Thanks cypher.

  The power is just to ensure long term use of the product.

  When I came to Oz 10 years ago, I brought with me one of the first Socket 478 P4s with Hyperthreading. (Dell Precision Workstation 360)

  At the time, it was considered a beast and because of its strong specs, I am happy to say that I was was a competent and capable machine long after XP had died. I'm looking to do something similar but with a touch screen as I feel it will be the future.

  I find your powerful portable/powerful argument interesting but I am so far out of the loop these days with processors. I thought an i7 with 8GB of ram had good enough 'grunt' to get me throught the next 5 - 7 years of computing.

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    xyron on 02/12/2014 - 11:45

    +1

    Well this is already a generation old (Ivy Bridge), and mobile i7 processors necessarily aren't as powerful as their desktop counterparts.

    However I am still inclined to agree with you that a current i7 will easily be futureproof for the next 5-7 years. Hell, I'm using an i7 2600 desktop machine from 2011 and i don't see myself retiring that beast for at least another few years - innovation in desktop processor power has completely shat the bed in recent years, such that there really is no compelling reason to jump to haswell from sandy bridge (and in my view is part of the reason why intel are forcing socket upgrades every couple of years now - to prevent sandy bridge hangers-on from being able to find replacement motherboards in years to come, and ultimately being forced to move to haswell for no discernible benefit).

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      kfuerza on 02/12/2014 - 12:23

      Thanks xyron,

      I work in IT and used to be 'That guy' when it came to PC specs and squeezing performance out of a PC.

      As I….er….matured (old fart) and had kids, I don't have the time (or quite frankly patience to learn) for gaming anymore. Gaming was my driving force in re installing my PC every 6 months and spending lavish cash on upgrades.

      I'm so out of the loop now that I don't know the right questions to ask when it comes to processors etc.
      Thanks for the Ivy Bridge info. That gives me something to research and anchor my decisions on in the future.

      All-in-ones are perfect in concept but as the RRP of this one showed, I'm not going to pay a premium (1400+ bucks in this case) for something that I could get at half price in a desktop with the same/similar specs.

      Before I came to Oz I was a Dell refurb shop at home. All my PCs were refurbs and many times street price of the proc and the ram in them was more expensive that the cost of the entire refurbed PC.

      My hesitation on this is that my price point is/was around $600 bucks for a new PC. This is JUSSSSSST outside of that and not cheap enough to quell my lust for saving more pennies for a Surface Pro 3 next year.

      I'm doing my best to hold off until Windows 10 to see how/if that changes the market. Same reason I'm holding off on buying a Nokia 1020 cuz….I wanna see what the 1030 is gonna be like and the 1020 will be bargain basement cheap by that time if the featureset isn't compelling.

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    cypher67 on 02/12/2014 - 12:15

    +2

    I think 2 much emphasis is placed on CPU these days, unless you are doing heavy multitasking, gaming or video/photo editing, spending extra on CPU's has diminishing returns and a dedicated GPU would give you better overall perforance. As previously stated, getting a dedicated SSD would be the most cost effect performance improvement one can get.

    In reference to my Portable/powerful arguement - I feel a device should be designed for one or the other, you cant have it both ways without a massive pricetag. Powerful isnt just a fat CPU and excess RAM, its the quality of RAM, it needs to be a dedicated GPU and fast SSD coupled on a purpose built motherboard & display. Portable need to be compact, lightweight, practical whilst maintaining a good user experience while doing common tasks.

    I understand your desire to purchase one for a long time, I spent $3.5k on a desktop 5.5 years ago and it is still going solid on all the games I play. But in hindsight, I should have gone mid range and I could have had 3 computers in that time with the most recent faster than what I currently have.

    Just food for thought, I dont expect people to agree with me.

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      kfuerza on 02/12/2014 - 12:28

      Again valid points cypher.

      I do some online training creation from time to time (Using 'rapid e-learing tools like Adobe Captivate and Articlate) and the stronger proc and ram is enticing for the (very limited these days) times I would have to develop some content. Having said that….I STILL don't think either products take advantage of multi-threading anyway so…there's that.

      Appreciate the insight everyone. Happy to take more feedback to help me with tracking and monitoring stuff for next year.

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  mrmarkau67 on 02/12/2014 - 15:20

  What an intriguing machine. But I've never seen one in real life, and they have been out for over a year. And no one else seems to be making machines like this any more. If it turns out an evolutionary dead end, portable in a not very useful way, then could you afford to relegate it to "kitchen pc" status and buy what you really need?

  You might consider upgrading your nw8440 with an SSD ($80) and Windows 10 (free!) and see if you can eke out another 6-9 months until Surface 4 comes out.

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  scrimshaw on 02/12/2014 - 23:24

  There's one fatal flaw with this niche product: The portability of this computer will diminish after about a year. The lithium battery will dry up, turning your 'tablet pc' into a permanently tethered desktop when the battery no longer holds a charge.

  At least with traditional laptops, you can remove (and buy spares) the battery and prolong it's life by not using charge cycles when your laptop is being used as a desktop replacement