Dell XPS One - Where Everything is Stuffed in the Monitor: Do We Like It?

I can get one of these wiped and refreshed with Win10 pro, Intel i7, 16GB memory 27" monitor, 1TB SSD, Webcam etc. For about $500.

Does anyone have experience with these type of non-Mac, PC stuffed into the back of a monitor?

Also curious about these as my tower is a solid 12 years old - despite upgrades it is getting twitchy...

Take a look at the Optiplex Ultras - they are modular.



You can upgrade either the PC or the monitor separatly.  

I've had a number of the Optiplex versions in my environment at work.  It's basically a laptop.  They're good at not taking up a lot of space, but don't expect it to run Cyberpunk.

I'm not a fan.  Limited upgradablity,  marginal cooling and the fact that one component failure can render the whole thing junk makes them unattractively to me.  What is it about that form factor that makes it appealing to you?  There may be other options.

In reply to APEowner :

The clean, uncluttered desktop with the seductive possibility of only 1 cable - for power. I would only be using this PC for email, YouTube/web/GRM forum reading, and an occasional MS Office document. I'm retiring in 2 months and my computer needs will be greatly simplified. I would want the next hardware to last about 5-10 years. I already have an iPad.  

I tend to prefer a larger case with easier options for upgrades and more room for cooling (especially with a 5-10 year time horizon).

I bought an XPS 7760 all-in-one for my kitchen, common area.  Bought the refurb.  Kids gamed with it some on Fortnite and it did okay.  All-in-ones make sense only when you have the aesthetic needs of not having a tower.  I didn't want to drill a hole in my new quartz countertops for cables and I didn't want cables and hardware all over the desk / hutch in my kitchen.  Plus it has 6 forward firing speakers and 2 'subs,' downward firing.  So it has plenty of volume if I want to stream music videos or whatever in the kitchen. 

Main quirks with it -- the camera is in the bottom instead of the top of the screen, rendering it about useless.  It's a heavy mofo....like seriously 30lb range.  Runs hot when gaming.

It's been running 24x7 for 3 years now and has never missed a beat.  

I've taken it apart to upgrade it several times.  Dell has great technical documentation and it was very serviceable for replacing and upgrading common components.  You're not going to get an RTX3090 in there, but memory, nv.me, or SSD/HDD upgrades are straightforward.

Sparkydog said:

In reply to APEowner :

The clean, uncluttered desktop with the seductive possibility of only 1 cable - for power. I would only be using this PC for email, YouTube/web/GRM forum reading, and an occasional MS Office document. I'm retiring in 2 months and my computer needs will be greatly simplified. I would want the next hardware to last about 5-10 years. I already have an iPad.  

Yeah, the lack of clutter is nice.  My shop PC is actually a Raspberry Pi which sits in the cabinet that the monitor arm is attached to.  One could attach the Raspberry Pi to the back of the monitor with similar results.  The big downside is that you need to use some variation of LINUX and despite what the fanboys will tell you there is a learning curve.

A counterpoint to my criticisms is that $500.00 is not an expensive PC and there are going to be compromises at that price point.

Not a fan of how you're locked down with no modularity. 

However, if you just need an email machine, I don't see why not. I'd personally get a laptop + monitor so you can at least keep the monitor when the laptop craps out, but that's me. 

APEowner said:

A counterpoint to my criticisms is that $500.00 is not an expensive PC and there are going to be compromises at that price point.

This is a used $1800 PC.

I bought one a few years ago to get rid of clutter.

Worked great for a couple years until there was a "pop" sound and everything died.

I have a desktop again.

I order IT equipment for my company as part of my day gig. All-in-one (AIO) PC's seem like a good compromise of space savings and cost, but I've found that they break much more often than desktops, laptops, or even 2-in-1s. They make a lot of compromises when it comes to hardware, and are often equipped with AIO-specific chipsets and processors that aren't great. And when they break, you pretty much throw them out.

We've recently started replacing these with mini-PC's and large monitors. Something like this:



I've found that these are much more capable at functioning as a real PC if you are looking to have a small footprint. And if there's a hardware failure, they are cheaper to replace parts or one of the components.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Can you link a learn me on mini pc? Our tower is on it's last legs....

With a monitor that large, you can hide most mini-towers behind the monitor.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Can you link a learn me on mini pc? Our tower is on it's last legs....

Check these out.
They are a good alternative for people who want a small form factor PC. We have a number of these little guys in service and they have been great.

I have an older HP Touchsmart in the Garage.

I upgraded the RAM and added a better video card (MXM upgrade like on some laptops) along with a SSD.

Works great so far and being a touchscreen means its less likely to get too damaged with dirty fingers.

That said, any laptop style device will be limited in its capabilities and upgrade path.  If I hadn't found this Touchsmart, I'd have rocked a mini-pc/Raspi with a monitor since the monitor tech doesn't change nearly as often as the underlying computer tech does.

Tony Sestito said:

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Can you link a learn me on mini pc? Our tower is on it's last legs....

Check these out.
They are a good alternative for people who want a small form factor PC. We have a number of these little guys in service and they have been great.

Thank you for that link!!!  I like those.