The well-designed stand meets the chassis at the bottom left and right edges, which means it offers excellent stability and stays out of your way when you're trying to plug and unplug peripherals. The stand offers a generous amount of tilt, so much so that I found a comfortable viewing angle even for my 6-foot-2-inch height while standing and looking at the Inspiron 27 7000 placed on a waist-level lab bench. Thankfully, Dell includes a wireless keyboard and mouse rather than a wired pair that clutters your desk. Both peripherals are white to match the rest of the system. The keyboard is compact and the optical mouse is ambidextrous; both are serviceable if no match for Logitech's or Microsoft's best. In my early career, I worked as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of "Dummies"-style computer guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I'm a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York University's journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. All Dell Inspiron 27 models have a 1080p display. The base model has a matte, non-touch screen, but the model I tested had a glossy touchscreen upgrade. 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

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 For

Monochromatic Style

Because they have bigger screens, AIO PCs are physically larger than laptops. Of course, you give up the ability to easily move them from room to room, but AIOs are still more portable than tower PCs. All-in-one PCs don't have the expandability that you're going to find in most towers, but they do tend to have better looks. on Dell internal analysis using publicly available specs in August 2023 comparing maximum effective capacity for PowerStore 1200 and FlashArray //X20. Assumes average 4:1 data reduction for PowerStore, 5:1 for Pure Storage. Actual results vary. 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).

Because an all-in-one is, at its heart, a computer, it should have all the ports you expect to need during your day-to-day activities, particularly USB ports (in easy-to-access places, if at all possible). You may also want a dedicated Ethernet port, though all-in-ones today come with Wi-Fi support built-in, so you can easily hook up the system to the wireless network you already have in your home or office. 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. 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. Music sounds impressive thanks to the speakers’ bass which, in turn, provides room for the upper and mid-range to express themselves without becoming muddled. Vocals and beats come through at once without one overwhelming the other. 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 pair of speakers beneath the Dell Inspiron 27’s fabric-covered chin are loud, deliver respectable bass, and sound clear even at high volume.

Other advantages? You can share the PC among the members of a family, and use it to store centrally accessible photos, music, and videos. And a large, widescreen AIO PC makes for a fine videoconferencing system. Rather than having the family crowd around your iPad or a little laptop screen, seat them in front of a 27- or 34-inch AIO desktop so you're not subconsciously squeezing together to "fit on the screen." Plus, a large AIO screen is ideal for watching a movie from 5 or 6 feet away, so a couple in, say, a studio apartment could use a big-screen AIO as a TV in front of a small sofa or loveseat. Or, if you place the system in a central location, such as your kitchen counter, you can monitor your children when they're online. So, you just started shopping for an AIO. The first thing to look at (no pun intended) is the display—the centerpiece of any AIO. While some less-expensive AIO PCs will come with panels smaller than 23 inches, those are better suited to exceedingly cramped spaces such as classroom labs or dorm rooms. (Go much smaller than that, and you might as well just buy a big-screen laptop.) What you really want is a display at least 23 inches on the diagonal—and larger is better if you can do it. The biggest all-in-ones we've seen to date have curved 34-inch screens. Because AIOs tend to use more powerful processors than laptops do, all-in-one PCs will execute CPU-intensive tasks more rapidly, on the whole. Some 3D games will run better, too, thanks to the discrete graphics chips in some A-grade AIO PCs. To find AIOs with discrete chips, look for graphics solutions dubbed GeForce GTX or RTX, or Radeon RX, as opposed to Intel Iris Xe, UHD, or HD Graphics, or AMD Radeon (no "RX") integrated graphics. (Credit: Molly Flores) Also handy is an HDMI input port, which gives you the flexibility to use the AIO as a discrete display for a separate PC, a game console, or another video source. It also gives an AIO with a sharp display some potential utility years down the road as a stand-alone monitor, when the PC portion inside becomes obsolete. 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.But there is an issue with the display: the “screen door effect,” which results in faint, visible lines across the display. This is caused by a gap between pixels that’s large enough to be noticeable. The Dell Inspiron 27 suffers a mild version of this issue, so everyone might not see it, but those that do will most likely find it distracting.