When it comes to a PC, it is all about how it actually performs in all sorts of conditions. And so that’s why I am going to start with how it looks. Actually, that’s quite an important aspect of this particular PC – it is one those all-in-one jobbies.
And it does look pretty nice – however because the bezel is uncharacteristically huge, you would be forgiven to think there is a massive cathode ray tube behind that 21 inch screen. But there isn’t.
Made by Dell, you would expect it to be built well, and it certainly appears to be. Because this is basically a laptop screen on a stand with all the gubbins behind it, the things weighs a ton.
Putting it together is a breeze and you won’t need an instruction leaflet. The massively heavy screen can be laid flat, grab the flat plate on the leg and clip it in, and while it is all still laying down, screw in the base plate. It took me about 55 seconds. Plug in power, and then the mouse and keyboard, turn it all the right way up and away you go. First thing you will want to change are the wired keyboard and mouse. The idea of an all in one is to reduce clutter, so strange this one arrived without wireless peripherals.
That said, the tiny keyboard felt brilliant, and the mouse equally so – I especially like the wide wheel. The mouse is compact but not too small – responsive and accurate too. On the keyboard, I was glad to see despite its size, most of the function keys did not have to do double duty and many do on laptops. Saves an extra keystroke with the function key.
So what’s inside? The processor is an i5-7500 with 8GB of RAM. Graphics are handled by Intel Graphics 630. The hard drive is tiny at 256GB but it is a SSD so the whole things feels nippy. Guess you are going to have to sort some sort of larger storage solution, though, if you happen to have a lot to store.
We fired up PC Mark 10 to check out those results. As a office device, it scores pretty but don’t expect to play many high end games on massive resolutions. Video editing could be done well, but don’t expect render times to be spectacular.
It would make a great workhorse PC so long as there are no grand demands for graphics work. The display was adequate but not stunning. Would prefer a bit more in-your-face performance, but it is good enough. A faint hum may annoy if used in a particularly quiet environment.
On the back is two USB3s, two USB2s, ethernet, HDMI, headphones jack, display port. We like this unit but it could be more attractive. There is nothing wrong with the performance, but you always want more. At the time of writing, places like eBuyer was selling it for a squeeze under £840 which sounded a lot to us.
