Dell Inspiron One 2320: Stuck in the Middle With You
by Dustin Sklavos on November 17, 2011 12:30 AM ESTGaming Performance
I can only hope I've contained my excitement enough for this part. As mentioned in the frequently referenced HP TouchSmart 610 review, these GPUs just aren't powerful enough to be driving these 1080p displays. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M is pretty heavily hamstrung, operating at even lower clocks than the already underpowered desktop GT 430. I can't believe this is the best Dell can offer in this all-in-one. We'll start with our "Medium" 1080p test suite. It'll be a little underwhelming with just the two all-in-ones tested here, but bear with me.
Medium is about as good as you're going to get for half of these games if you want to try and play them at native, but the Inspiron One 2320's GPU is sadly even weaker than the already mediocre AMD Radeon HD 5570 in the TouchSmart. It leads in DiRT 2 but trails everywhere else, and the "High" testing is only more depressing.
At our high settings the games are unplayable across the board. All-in-ones need something at least at the level of a Radeon HD 5750 to really support the resolutions they're shipping at. And keep in mind that our gaming test suite is mostly over a year old, so newer titles will likely struggle even more (e.g. Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Rage, and the slew of additional games coming out this holiday season).
I asked a friend of mine who's a big fan of StarCraft II to give playing it on the touchscreen a try. As some of you have observed, I'm honestly too much of a moron to grok RTS games, but my buddy Benjamin is a big fan so I turned him loose on the Inspiron One 2320. His response was that the potential for a touch interface in the game was definitely there, but the game's not really designed for it and would need some changes to be playable that way. There are also the issues inherent with responsiveness in current touchscreen technology (misregistered clicks, etc.) that keep it from being a home run. I do feel like this genre of games is one of the places where a touchscreen might be viable on the desktop, but it seems to be a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation at present, and without decent graphics hardware I'm not sure it can ever really succeed.
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tipoo - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
"more than adequate for even the most basic use."Doesn't really make sense.
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
No, not really; I've corrected the sentence.Roland00Address - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
i7 2630qm Recommended Customer Price $378i5 2400s Recommended Customer Price $184 - $195
That is a difference of a $150 dollars, or in other words a lot of profit.
cknobman - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Dell has always made overpriced under-powered machines usually accompanied with godawful ugly designs.melgross - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
At least they're consistent.melgross - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
You really are intelligent. Great response! I suppose you are a Dell customer for life.terraformer - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
My father has been through 3 of these very machines, and each one has suffered extreme heat issues that fried the HD. Dell has been accommodating, but read any user reviews around the 'net and see a majority of owners experiencing the same problems. Dell rushed this out the door without addressing the clear cooling problem that these systems have. I still see ads for these all over the place.So I talked my father into buying my one-year old 27" iMac, and walked him through the differences in terms of UI. He is thrilled with it now, loves how fast it starts, how it can largely run itself (e.g., updates).
And I bought a new iMac, spec'd it out pretty highly and, dear kind Sir above, it plays games beautifully and flawlessly. This avid FPS gamer (since Quake days) finds this machine plenty good enough for gaming. And I can run BF3 at ultra settings - turning off AA and a few other things - at native resolution at just above 30 fps. And that is fine with me.
dirtboy12 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
We bought many of these (around 300) for a school district and have seen at least 1/3 of them have their hard drives just die. One poor teacher has been through 4 hard drives on the same machine, but Dell keeps thinking that the solution is to put another one in. What was that quote about insanity?dave_the_nerd - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Insanity is the mother of invention?OwnedKThxBye - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Every time I read a review of a consumer/non-enthusiast laptop or all-in-one it seems like such a high value is placed on the screen quality. I sometimes wonder if people understand that these devices are used predominately by people who for the most part don't know what the word resolution means, let alone the differences between a TN and IPS panel. These machines are not aimed at the tech savvy power users, but the kind of people who tell me "everything on this screen looks too small. Is there a way I can make it larger?". A better quality screen with larger resolution isn't going to help them check Facebook and emails any better. In some cases high resolution can even seem like a disadvantage for those with bad eye sight. These kind of people are not going to choose to spend even $40 more on a better quality screen, however they might choose to spend the $40 if it made the screen larger. Customers have never told me they wish they could upgrade the screen on their all-in-one or laptop to a better quality one.This is a Dell Inspiron all-in-one that me and you are not going to go out and buy for numerous reasons. I'm reading this review on a 30" HP and have a 24" on either side of it. I will pay the extra for a better quality screen every time, but I know the kind of customers that make up the target audience for this device will not. If the customer chooses to love it and buy it or hate it and not buy it, either way not much if any of their decision will be based on the screen quality.
Love the review Dustin