So, the 15-inch display on your laptop is starting to feel cramped, and you work in one place most of the time? Sure, you could attach a second screen to your notebook, or opt for a desktop tower with a separate monitor, but a more streamlined option is an all-in-one (AIO) desktop. For about the same money that you would spend on a midrange-to-high-end laptop with a 17-inch screen (or more likely, less), you can get an AIO computer with a 23-inch or larger display.
Of course, buying a highly integrated system like this is a bit more exacting than shopping for 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 makes smart buying up front crucial. Indeed, landing the right AIO is more like shopping for a laptop than a desktop.
We've outlined below our top picks among AIO desktops we've tested. Read on for our labs-tested favorites, followed by the buying basics you should know when buying one. Also note: At the very end of this article is a detailed spec breakout, in handy chart format, of our top choices.
PCMag recently declared the 27-inch Apple iMac the best large-screen all-in-one desktop you can buy. It better be: Our test unit rings up at $4,499. If you're looking for an all-in-one for the rest of us, the HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One (model 24-k0220z, as tested) combines AMD's overachieving Ryzen 5 4600H processor with plenty of memory and storage for $799.99. The Pavilion 24 doesn't pretend to compete with the loaded iMac—it has a 23.8-inch instead of 27-inch display, for starters—but it's a peppy, well-equipped rig for a family room or den and our new Editors' Choice for a budget all-in-one.
You may have started your shopping for an all-in-one desktop by eyeing Apple’s iMac before quickly determining it doesn’t fit your budget. After all, the cheapest iMac costs $1,099, and that’s for the small, 21.5-inch model. (You need at least $1,799 for the bigger, latest 27-inch one.) A good fallback option for would-be iMac owners is the HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One, which won an Editors’ Choice award last year and delivers an attractive design and a 24-inch display for around $700. If even that sum is still too large, then the Asus M241 is a very good bet. A Windows 10-based iMac-alike that rings in at $639 on Amazon, this 24-inch all-in-one provides ample performance and a dazzling design at an aggressive price. It's our new Editors' Choice pick for bare-budget all-in-ones (AIOs).
The original Apple iMac, launched at the end of the last millennium, is the archetype for the modern all-in-one desktop computer. The most recognizable of all Mac desktops, its luster nevertheless diminished over the past two decades as it became less distinctive and more like its Windows competitors.
Now, Apple is trying something different. The new-for-2021 24-inch iMac (starts at $1,299; $2,028 as tested) takes the legend back to its roots, adding customizable color options that extend across the physical surfaces of the computer and its accessories. Add in cutting-edge enhancements that Apple’s M1 silicon enables, like a fingerprint reader and immensely improved image processing, and you get an excellent iMac that could define the next 20 years of desktop computing. It wins our TechX award for redefining what is possible—and what "skinny" now means—in an all-in-one desktop.
Mirroring the overall contraction of the desktop PC market, all-in-one models with integrated screens trailed off in popularity for many years. But now, the proliferation of work-from-home setups has brought them roaring back. HP is one of the few PC manufacturers left that consistently debuts new AIO designs, and its latest update of the HP Envy 34 (starts at $1,999.99; $2,709.99 as tested) is one of the best AIOs that's ever graced its stable. A dream for creative professionals—and still a solid system for everyone else—it's got a 34-inch 5K display, a movable camera, and snappy performance. Like-priced traditional desktops can offer more power (particularly on the GPU front), but for what’s included here, the Envy 34 is a fair value and easily cops our Editors' Choice recommendation for high-end Windows AIO PCs.
With significant changes going on beneath its familiar exterior, the revamped-for-2020 27-inch version of the Apple iMac bolsters its claim to being the best large-screen all-in-one (AIO) computer you can buy. Improvements include the option for a 10-core Intel Core i9 processor, updated AMD Radeon Pro graphics, and a vastly better 1080p camera just in time for the videoconferencing era. While it starts at a reasonable $1,799, the 27-inch iMac can get pricey once configured with sensible extras, like the $4,499 version reviewed here. But with so few competitors in this category of desktop, the iMac stands out as the obvious choice for someone willing to pay for a lot of computing power and other unique features in a sleek all-in-one package.
The HP Chromebase All-in-One 22 ($479.99) is a rarity among Chrome OS devices: It’s an all-in-one (AIO) desktop, not a laptop. Instead of a Chromebook you might use for school or as a secondary computer, the Chromebase is meant for your den or kitchen. And it’s no ordinary AIO. In addition to using Chrome OS instead of macOS or Windows, the HP Chromebase stands apart from the AIO crowd with a display that can rotate between landscape and portrait modes. We're not completely sold on the rotating touchscreen panel, but we found plenty to like about this attractive, affordable, and unique Chrome OS computer. It earns an Editors' Choice award among budget AIO desktops.
The Modern AM241P 11M all-in-one PC is MSI's follow-on to the ho-hum Pro 24X 10M we reviewed last fall. Like the Pro 24X, the Modern AM241P (which starts at $849.99, as tested) is a compact, affordable 23.8-inch all-in-one (AIO) PC. In the intervening months, however, MSI has outfitted the Modern AM241P with an updated Intel Core i5 CPU and addressed the three biggest gripes we had about the Pro 24X 10M: too much fan noise, and the lack of both a webcam and USB Type-C connectivity. The Modern AM241P’s cooling fan still makes itself heard, but the system is much quieter when idle or under light loads. A pair of USB-C ports makes an appearance, and the system now includes a webcam—if not in the way you are probably thinking. (More on that in a moment.) The Modern AM241P is a clear improvement over the Pro 24X 10M, and a solid-enough AIO for small businesses, but the HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One remains our favorite budget Windows AIO.
Budget PCs are a balancing act, and the Dell Inspiron 24 5000 AIO balances—quite literally—on one of its weaker points. This budget all-in-one PC with a 24-inch display (starts at $579.99; $599.99 as tested) is perched on what Dell refers to as a "bipod stand," with a pair of rodlike legs at either end of the display. Alas, they restrict where you can position the PC on your desk. More an impediment, though, is system’s platter hard drive. Here in the era of the solid-state drive (SSD), our Inspiron 24 5000 tester feels sluggish during general use, despite some positive results on our content-creation benchmarks. The Asus M241 costs only $60 more and provides better bang for your all-in-one buck, while the more upscale HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One remains our favorite all-in-one under a grand.
The Dell OptiPlex 5490 All-in-One (starts at $1,239; $1,399 as tested) features midrange computing components inside a space-saving, 24-inch all-in-one (AIO) chassis. What separates it from a consumer-grade all-in-one isn’t a high-end processor or super-charged workstation-class graphics, but a three-year warranty and a highly adjustable design that lets you position the display just right—ergonomics are an important factor for long workdays. The OptiPlex 5490 also uses a more powerful desktop-class CPU instead of the mobile processors usually found on all-in-one PCs where airflow and thermal concerns are paramount. Many businesses will be better off with a small-form-factor PC and a separate display, but if you must have an AIO, the OptiPlex 5490 is a solid option.
In its time, the original Microsoft Surface Studio was the most elegantly realized vision of a swift all-in-one desktop and a digital, pen-enabled drawing board combined. Digital art creation, engineering, architecture, and other professions that employ touch displays often rely on multiple products in their workflows—graphics tablets, secondary displays for palettes and timelines, specialized input devices—and the Surface Studio wrapped up much of this into one package. Its Surface Studio 2 sequel (starts at $3,499; $4,199 as tested) refines it with faster internal components packing more grunt for demanding workloads: a lightning-fast M.2 solid-state drive (SSD), a newer processor, and a potent Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or GTX 1070 graphics chip. It's a pricey proposition, and not in the class of workstation-grade PCs, but for the pros and creatives who need its specific touch-centric talents, this is a killer machine.
The IdeaCentre Yoga A940 (starts at $2,299.99, in the model tested) is Lenovo's take on Microsoft's Surface Studio concept: that is, a convertible all-in-one desktop. Like the Studio's, the A940's touch screen reclines for use as a digital drafting board, making it possible to sketch, model, and do general tasks all on one PC. Two useful accessories, a stylus and the Surface Dial-like Precision Dial, come bundled, and the A940 packs a bit more speed than the Studio 2 at a lower price. By and large, the A940 hits its target, but it underwhelms in places, notably in the quality of its build and screen. The Surface Studio 2 remains our top pick in this admittedly niche category of PCs, but if you're on a tighter budget and the concept syncs with your workflow, the Yoga 940 is a unique, functional alternative.
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.
With a screen 23 inches or larger, you're almost guaranteed a native resolution of at least 1,920 by 1,080 pixels (aka, full HD), and larger screens will go even higher. In many cases, that's up to 4K—3,840 by 2,160 pixels—for a conventionally shaped screen, or 3,440 by 1,440 pixels on an ultra-wide display. High resolutions of that kind give you the ability to view multiple windows side by side, or view a spreadsheet three to four pages wide. Indeed, if you're a multitasker, the more screen room, the better.
Though it's not a concern to those with 20/10 vision, a larger screen and a higher native resolution will let you increase the font size on your Word documents or Excel spreadsheets while still keeping a lot of information on the screen at one time. Desktop screens tend to be brighter than laptop displays in general, as well. Look for in-plane switching (IPS) technology for the best screen quality. IPS screens are inherently better at off-axis viewing, which means you won't have to be sitting perfectly centered to see accurate colors and all the detail in your images.
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 a 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.
Don't fret either way. Scrolling with a mouse or a touchpad will still be as quick as or quicker than on a touch screen, because with an AIO, you have to reach up to the screen, taking a hand off the keyboard or mouse. Selecting text for copying and pasting is easier with a mouse, too. If you fill out forms online and switch among text-entry boxes, pull-down menus, and check boxes, you'll be able to enter data more quickly with a keyboard and mouse.
If you're planning on using the touch screen at least 50 percent of the time, look for systems with screens that can recline down to horizontal, or almost horizontal. This lets you use the system like a large tablet, so you don't have to hold your arm out constantly to use the touch screen. Think about using an ATM: The vertical screen is fine for a 90-second transaction, but it would become tiring after 10 minutes or more. It comes down to simple ergonomics.
Speaking of vertical orientation, the occasional AIO will come with a stand that lets you pivot the screen into a portrait orientation. Portrait mode lets you view content such as webpages and appropriately shaped pictures without wasted space to the sides of the screen. It's a boon for web developers, as well as layout artists still working on print publications. If portrait mode is something you'd be interested in, make sure the system features auto-rotate; without it, you'll need to switch display settings every time you pivot the display. Portrait pivoting is far more common in stand-alone desktop monitors than in AIOs, though.
PC manufacturers are generally slower to update AIOs than their other offerings, so many of the units here are running slightly older processor generations like Intel's 10th Generation ("Coffee Lake") and 11th Generation ("Tiger Lake" mobile or "Rocket Lake" desktop-grade) chips. As 2022 continues, we may see more systems adopt Intel's 12th Generation ("Alder Lake") processors, but most have so far stuck with older Intel chips or AMD alternatives for price and power draw considerations. Any modern processor will help with editing photos or videos, or running intensive media processes in the background while you work on several tasks in the foreground.
AMD's Ryzen chips have appeared in a few all-in-ones, in the form of Ryzen 5 and lower-powered Ryzen 3 processors. Some of our top picks are Ryzen models, and the company's chips are turning up in highly regarded powerful laptops. But in general, Intel CPUs dominate the AIO PC market. Meanwhile, among Macs, Apple's newest AIO, the 24-inch iMac based on the Apple M1 processor, is the harbinger of where things are likely going for the iconic iMac.
When looking at and comparing CPUs in AIO PCs, a key distinction to work out is whether the AIO uses a full-desktop CPU or a mobile one. All else being equal, a full-desktop chip is preferable. How to tell: Mobile chips from the likes of Intel (as mentioned, most desktop AIOs will use Intel chips, as opposed to ones from rival AMD) will have a "U," "Gx," (where "x" is a number) "H," or "HQ" appended to the end of the chip model number. A desktop CPU will have no letter at the end, or perhaps a "K" or "T."
An 8GB helping of DDR4 RAM should be the minimum amount of system memory you settle for. (We haven't seen a 12th Generation Intel CPU-based AIO yet, but when we do, some will surely support the newer DDR5 memory standard.) Although 4GB will work fine for very basic tasks, you'll feel the pinch of such a low-spec computer sooner. That said, 8GB or 16GB will let you keep dozens of tabs open on your browser and still have room left over for a demanding program such as Photoshop. And 16GB is the recommended minimum for professional content-creation use.
As far as storage, look for a boot drive of at least 1TB capacity if you're going to store any video on your PC. Videos clog up hard drives faster than just about any other type of file. If you're a heavy download fiend, opt for a 2TB drive. The only issue is that a traditional spinning hard drive is relatively slow at booting and loading apps. If you'd rather have a snappier system that's more speed demon than file-storage repository, look for an AIO that uses a solid-state drive (SSD) as the boot drive. (Most now do.) If you keep all your files on a central network-attached storage (NAS) device or stored in the cloud, just about any SSD or hard drive 500GB or larger should be sufficient. That's enough for the operating system and a handful of frequently used programs.
You can have the best of both worlds with an all-in-one PC that boots from a SSD but has an additional spinning hard drive for storage. In that case, look for at least a 256GB SSD boot drive and 1TB of supplemental hard drive storage if you're a power user. You'll need more storage (2TB to 4TB) if you plan on keeping your entire video, music, and photo collection on your AIO.
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. In some older AIO models, opting for an AIO with an Intel Optane Memory solid-state caching module supplementing a platter hard drive can speed up tasks like loading apps, but for true speed, insist on a "real" SSD as your primary (C:) drive. Unfortunately, some AIO PCs are hard or impossible to upgrade yourself, so make sure you get what you need at the start.
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.
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 other video source. It also gives an AIO with a nice display some potential utility years down the road as a stand-alone monitor, when the PC portion inside becomes obsolete.
Even if you find a 17-inch-screened laptop you like, you'll need a strong back to carry it anywhere; 6 pounds and up, plus an AC adapter, is the norm for machines like these. (See our top picks among 17-inch laptops.) So we suspect you won't travel with a 17-inch machine very much, making even a small-screen AIO a viable stay-at-home alternative. And because AIO desktops are plugged in, you won't ever run out of battery power, even when you leave your system in sleep mode for weeks.
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, GeForce MX, or Radeon RX, as opposed to Intel Iris Xe, UHD, or HD Graphics, or AMD Radeon Vega integrated graphics.)
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 good 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.
But these PCs aren't just good for play. A few years back, Apple brought the AIO further into workstation territory with the iMac Pro. The starting price for this monster machine at launch was high at $5,000, but it packed a jaw-dropping amount of muscle: It has a 27-inch 5K screen and is configurable with up to an 18-core processor, 128GB of memory, and 4TB of solid-state storage. (Note that it is still for sale at this writing from non-Apple sources, often used or as a refurbished model, but as of March 2021, Apple noted that it would be discontinuing the iMac Pro.) In most cases, this kind of muscle is found only in elite-grade tower PCs, but the very best AIOs can rival a high-end desktop.
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 be more stylish.
That said, towers are still better than all-in-one PCs when you need to do intensive work like CAD/CAM or scientific data processing, and most of them are expandable in ways far beyond even the most upgrade-generous AIO on the market. PC gamers, especially, will get much more value out of a stand-alone tower in which they can swap out a graphics card than in a fixed-config AIO PC.
The next time you're online and thinking that you really need a bigger screen than the one on your current laptop or tablet, take a look at an all-in-one desktop. You may be surprised how much screen, and how much power, they deliver for the money versus a like-priced laptop.
Also, be sure to check out our top desktop picks overall, as well as our favorite desktops for work and for PC gaming. Below, though, are the top AIOs that have passed through our labs of late.
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