Adding an extra terabyte or so is also easy with an external drive. SSDs cost more per gigabyte than regular spinning hard drives, but SSDs boot up and wake from sleep so much faster than regular drives that we highly recommend them as boot drives. Unfortunately, some AIO PCs are hard or impossible to upgrade yourself, so make sure you get what you need at the start. Shades of the 1990s gumdrop iMac can still be seen in today's 24-inch iMac. Apple's current iMac comes in seven lively colors from yellow to purple (with a matching mouse and keyboard in each box), so one is sure to fit the decor of any room in your abode. But it's not just a pretty face: After skipping the M2 generation entirely, the latest iMac boasts Apple's M3 chip for very speedy performance, while the 4.5K Retina display and webcam are first-class. For icing on the cake, macOS's integration with your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch is unparalleled. Who It's For In addition to the quad-core, 1.6GHz (4.2GHz turbo) Core i5-10210U CPU in the version I tested, the Inspiron 27 7000 can be configured with a Core i7-10510U chip. Both are laptop-class parts from Intel's latest 10th Generation "Comet Lake" processor family. My tester also featured Nvidia GeForce MX110 graphics with 2GB of dedicated video memory, an upgrade from the base model's Intel UHD Graphics 620 integrated solution. Of course, buying a highly integrated system like this is more exacting than your average desktop. Why? You're buying a computer and a monitor in one, and the inherent limits on what you'll be able to upgrade down the line make smart buying upfront crucial. Indeed, landing the right AIO is more like shopping for a laptop than a desktop. At the bottom of the display is what appears to be a giant sound bar. Alas, it's just for show—the actual speakers are two tiny stereo tweeters that offer laptop-quality sound. They'll fill an average-size living room and work fine for Skype calls with the grandparents, but they offer very little bass for listening to music or watching movies. (It's enough to make you miss Dell's discontinued 10-speaker, window-rattling XPS 27.) Fortunately, external speakers can fill the void.

Estimated valueis Dell’s estimate of product value based on industry data, including the prices at which third-party retailers have offered or valued the same or comparable products, in its most recent survey of major online and/or off-line retailers. Third-party retailer data may not be based on actual sales. As a general-purpose AIO, the Inspiron 27 7000 doesn't have the chops for gaming or multimedia content creation. It performed significantly worse than the 27-inch iMac in our Handbrake video encoding and Cinebench 3D rendering tests, both of which tax a system's CPU cores and threads to the utmost. The Intel Core i7-1255U is a 10-core processor which, on paper, sounds great. Only two of those cores are Performance cores, however. The rest are Intel’s far slower Efficient cores, and this limits performance in demanding workloads. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the two 3DMark tests is that the 12th Gen Core i7's Iris Xe integrated graphics are clearly superior to Intel's older UHD 630 silicon and closer to Nvidia's GeForce MX330 entry-level discrete GPU. None of these systems will satisfy hardcore gamers, but none is intended to. To touch-screen or not to touch-screen—that is a question of personal preference. The tiled Start interface in Windows 10 was designed with touch panels in mind, and it makes interacting with your various applications as easy as ever. Although these can be fun and functional for families, a touch screen isn't 100% necessary for everyone, especially if you plan to use the all-in-one like a traditional computer. If you're looking at an Apple iMac all-in-one, on the other hand, the decision is made for you: macOS doesn't take advantage of touch screens, and no Macs offer them. (Credit: Molly Flores)

Apple iMac 24-Inch (M3, 2023)

A faster processor and the addition of USB-C ports would make the IdeaCentre more appealing, but would likely see it leave budget pricing. Lenovo's included mouse, keyboard, and speakers are all better than you might expect, and you'll find a wide-enough array of HDMI, Ethernet, and USB-A ports. If you're outfitting a den or family room on a budget, the little Lenovo is an excellent affordable homework station and online kiosk (and DVD movie viewing station to boot). For our performance charts, we compared the Inspiron 27 All-in-One to another 27-inch AIO based on a previous-generation mobile Core i7, the Acer Aspire C27, as well as three 24-inch all-in-ones: the business-focused Dell OptiPlex 5490; the low-priced, AMD-powered Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3; and the M1-based Apple iMac. The Inspiron 27 7000 configuration I'm reviewing features an Intel Core i5-10210U processor typically found in laptops, which means it's not only less powerful than the Core i9-based iMac but also than a Core i5-class tower desktop. That's fine for basic productivity and web browsing, but it means the Dell can't serve as a multimedia content creation platform the way the iMac can.

Unfortunately, the Core i7-1255U falls behind in multi-threaded workloads, reaching just 5132 in Geekbench 5’s multi-threaded test. That’s far behind the Acer Aspire TC’s score of 7284, and merely ties the Lenovo Yoga 6, which scored 5105. The Inspiron 27 performance has limits, though. This is not a good choice for content creators of any level of experience. It’s also a terrible choice for PC gaming. The 1080p display also fails to impress which, in turn, can make streaming video look dull and soft—especially when compared to a 4K TV or monitor. The mouse is the better of the pair. It’s a simple and comfortable, compact device with three buttons and a scroll wheel. Nothing special, but it did the job. An entry-level Logitech mouse, like the M325 Wireless Mouse, is a better choice with superior materials and more buttons—but the bundled mouse is fine. Some competitors, like the HP Pavilion 27 and Lenovo IdeaCentre 5i offer similar wired connectivity. Still, the range of ports on the Inspiron 27 is excellent for the price. Dell’s Inspiron 27 All-in-One is an excellent choice if you want a simple, attractive, versatile desktop for basic tasks. It will look great in both a home office or living room, isn’t overly large, and runs quietly. There’s plenty of connectivity for both wired and wireless peripherals and even HDMI-in for an external video source, such as a game console.

That's the good news as far as the display goes. The bad news is that 1080p resolution isn't quite enough to produce a sufficiently sharp picture across the 27-inch panel—when you're seated in front of the screen, the edges of application windows and text characters appear blurry. The resolution is adequate if you're buying the Inspiron 27 as an entertainment system—1080p videos look crisp—but I wouldn't want to spend a full day doing productivity work in front of the display. It's a shame that Dell doesn't offer a display upgrade in the form of a 1440p or other higher-resolution panel; the old iMac's 5K pixel array isn't necessary, but something between full HD and 4K would be a good fit for this screen size.

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). HP's Envy 34 is one of the classiest showpieces in the all-in-one (AIO) arena. Its centerpiece is a gorgeous 34-inch widescreen display with 5K resolution that boosts your productivity by letting you arrange app windows to mimic a dual-monitor setup. HP's minimal stand belies this AIO's ample power, including Thunderbolt 4 ports and easily upgraded memory and storage. (Like all AIO desktops, it's not a fire-breathing gaming rig, though mobile-grade Nvidia GeForce GPUs are available.) Who It's ForThe Dell Inspiron 27 achieves a single-threaded score of 1570 in Geekbench 5. That’s a strong score, defeating the Core i5-12400 in the Acer Aspire TC desktop, which scored 1446. It also beats mid-range mobile AMD Ryzen processors. The Lenovo Yoga 6 laptop, powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, scored just 1075 in this test. The Dell didn't enjoy as much of an advantage in our CPU and multimedia tests, though it routinely topped the Aspire and IdeaCentre. The Dell OptiPlex 5490 led the way largely because of its eight-core, 16-thread Core i7 desktop processor, while the 24-inch M1 iMac took top honors in the cross-platform HandBrake, Cinebench, and Geekbench tests. Graphics Tests