Dell OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One Review: Dell's All-in-One Goes Enterprise
by Dustin Sklavos on September 19, 2012 7:01 AM EST- Posted in
- all-in-one
- Systems
- Dell
- Ivy Bridge
Conclusion: Curtailed by the Display
Having put the screws to the Dell OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One, I come away pleasantly surprised in many ways. This is one of the few all-in-ones I've seen where the overall design feels appropriate to the hardware. All-in-ones have a nasty, reoccurring problem with heat and fan noise stemming from the way they often cram the hardware behind a display that's generating plenty of heat on its own. The result is a form factor that should benefit over notebooks by the additional real estate for cooling but promptly sacrifices that benefit by clumping those hot components right next to each other anyhow. Dell's 9010 AiO doesn't have that problem. Without dedicated graphics soaking up precious cooling, it maintains reasonable temperatures and becomes a pretty stellar acoustic citizen in the process.
The question that I posed early on with the 9010 AiO was whether or not it justifies its existence against other solutions and whether or not it's a good choice for the use cases that Dell is targeting it at. Unfortunately, this is where we start getting on shaky ground, and the blame can be placed entirely on the poor quality display. eIPS displays are increasingly common and inexpensive in the wild, and even Dell offers them, so there's no reason why the 9010 AiO shouldn't sport one or at least the option for one. The poor viewing angles of the TN-based display cause the 9010 to immediately rule itself out of contention for kiosk use, photo editing, and video editing.
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What are we left with? Situations where the i7-3770S in our review system is overkill, unfortunately. The 9010 AiO becomes appropriate only for mass deployment in offices, schools, and libraries where not much more than a terminal is really needed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a situation where even the option to upgrade could've allowed the 9010 AiO to serve multiple masters just as effectively. Markets were sacrificed, full stop.
That's really where the disappointment comes in, too. One of the unfortunate parts of this job is having hardware come in that is so close to being a great solution, only to fall short because it seems like a penny pincher with no business designing hardware decided to cut a feature or make a sacrifice that they didn't think anyone would notice. Is the OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One a bad all-in-one system? Heavens no, it's among the best I've tested, and easily recommended for situations where a basic system is needed in bulk. But it could've been a lot better if someone hadn't pinched the wrong pennies.
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NickB. - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I always heard those poor viewing angles were a "security feature" - how else to explain the consistent use of such panels on business grade laptops?/sarc
Souka - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
we have a number of kiosks at my work for public use.we recently replaced the old 17-19" LCD crap-panels with 22" panels.
Quickly we had requests for privacy screens because the new 22" panels have good viewing angles.
so viewing angle can make a difference.
funny.... but reality....
frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
This type of machine is one of the few places in the desktop that I see a good fit for trinity. It would have better gpu performance and "good enough" cpu performance. I am not really a fan of AIO systems in general though. Just seems like too much compromise in performance, upgradability, and repairability for the benefit of saving a bit of space on the desktop.JarredWalton - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
And exactly what are you going to do on a kiosk that would benefit from having twice the GPU performance and half the CPU performance? Honestly, I find HD 4000 to be a perfectly adequate solution for everything outside of gaming. A better CPU choice for this system would be the i3-3225 I think -- only two CPU cores, but you don't really need more than that, and at 3.3GHz they're still plenty fast. I've got a system with just such a CPU and with a Samsung 128GB SSD it boots to Windows in about 10 seconds (plus the eight second POST -- I wish motherboard vendors would do more to decrease/eliminate POST times!)Conficio - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Really what is Dell thinking? Just reading the spec sheet and I see (at least a 1920 x 1080) display, but a TN panel with its bad viewing angles? And the target market of this is kiosk apps, where multiple people might look at a screen and the person's head is likely not aligned with the height of the screen (standing but device on a desk, standing height but people have different height).Try again Dell!
piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I'm OK with that, but to be honest they need to offer the perfect device for education, which would be a 19" 1440x900 AIO with a Core i3, 64GB SSD, 4GB RAM, perfectly fine if its TN, better, infact, to cut costs.There's a mass market for these kinds of devices, but it's always cheaper to do it from a small manufacturer..
StormyParis - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Why can't they just make a Thin-ITX monitor stand with a VESA mount and the PC in the base, and let us choose our screen ?piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
You've always been able to buy mini-ITX and mount them to a VESA screen. It's just a matter of options.piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Also, Dell has offered AIO stands that allow you to bolt an SFF desktop to the back of a screen for a long time, and they're damn convenient, one carry handle, the whole thing.TheSlamma - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Up till now most of the all-in-one business offerings have been limited. 3gb RAM max, 5400 rpm HD's, Pentium D processors, etc.Now we get Intel vPro (which is much needed for places trying to eliminate desktop visits.) and it addresses the previous limitations I mentioned. It also has high quality NIC and a good wifi card and runs very cool compared to an iMac.
While the display isn't top notch, I don't see a problem with it, the 1080 screen is as good as the standard panels that most companies order with optiplex machines.
While many people don't get the all-in-one, as mentioned int he article one target is public sector, schools, libraries and other local gov do want a smaller footprint. They are trying to do more with the same amount of space when they had Apple ]['s and XT's but with more kids and mobile furniture.
Did I mention how awesome it is to have Intel AMT on these? vPro + RealVNC viewer plus = WIN!!