Energy, Heat, And Battery Life
When you spend all day talking about high-end hardware, you're bound to hear from folks who feel strongly about the gratuitous power consumption of those components. Dell's XPS One 2710 is mostly made up of desktop-oriented parts, which benefit it in the performance metrics. However, the same potent pieces of gear also use quite a bit more power.
The same power-saving low-voltage parts in Lenovo's IdeaCentre Horizon that hold back our benchmark results effectively minimize consumption, to the point that its integrated battery is actually useful. Not surprisingly, then, Dell's XPS hits a peak power number twice as high as Lenovo's all-in-one.
The IdeaCentre Horizon also runs cooler in spite of its ultra-thin dimensions. Significantly less power consumption translates to less heat to dissipate.
Unlike Dell’s XPS One 2710, which only looks a little like a tablet, Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Horizon is portable and has a battery. Because this configuration is a first in my lab, the Lenovo stands alone in this test. For a bit of perspective, its combination of large screen and small CPU/GPU barely outlasts the opposite combination.
