Like a delicious sandwich of LCD, CPU and RAM, this Acer PC is that rare beast: an all-in-one that doesn't offer a watered-down computing experience.
The all-in-one PC is a curious beast. Most machines are minimalistic and offer anaemic performance compared to the ironically named and legroom-hogging desktop PC. The Acer Z3750 bucks the trend, with a powerful dual-core Intel i5 CPU running at 3.2GHz. It’s also equipped with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, letting you easily run multiple memory-heavy applications without appreciable slowdown.
The Acer comes installed with Windows Home Premium 64-bit as well as McAfee Antivirus. Surprisingly there is little other preinstalled bloatware to slow down your new machine. To test performance we fired up the synthetic benchmark staple, PCMark Vantage. The Z3750 scored a fairly impressive 5,579, putting it above average compared to its all-in-one brethren.
The Z3750 hardware hides behind a 21.5in LCD running at 1,920 x 1,080. The screen is driven by an NVIDIA GeForce 320 with 1GB of RAM that can happily cope with graphically demanding applications or older games. You also get HDMI and VGA outputs, letting you easily connect to a bigger screen or projector.
The Acer also has a built-in TV tuner card and comes with a slimline media remote. You do need to plug in an external antenna, but then setup is very easy thanks to Windows Media Center. The Z3750 has virtual Dolby surround sound and, despite a lack of bass, still offers better audio than most AIO PCs.
Storage-wise you get a rather large 1TB HDD, standard DVD drive and a card reader. You also get the typical eight USB ports, Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, audio outputs and a webcam. Of course, all this hardware needs significant space, plumping the Z3750 out to 10cm thick. The screen bezels are also fairly wide, making the screen seem smaller than it really is. The Aspire bundles with a keyboard and mouse, though sadly both are the wired variety.
The Z3750 does make an audible whine when running, though not loud enough to be a distraction. It’s also not the most energy-conservative PC, but at 85W under normal use your power bill won’t take a beating.
Available from Acer, retailing for $1,999.APC rating: 7/10