HP
TouchSmart 520-1080
3 stars
Price: $1,400
The touch screen all-in-one PCs are
ideal for families, because they are quieter, smaller and more attractive than
the sizzle traditional black boxes. TouchSmart 520-1080uk of HP is quite
compact and almost quiet, but of course it is not one of the most attractive
all-in-one that we've ever seen. Fat and thin black bezel and silver gray
plastic bottom make it look like an earlier flat-screen TV. 520 is flexible
than most all-in-one, with a swivel screen is tilted about 30 degree. However,
most corners it can reach are too far at the back or too inclined in the front
for comfortable watching.
The only significant advantage for the
ability to tilt very far toward the back of 520 is typing on the touch screen
keyboard easier. However, while the touch screen can be convenient to use PC as
a media player, we find some real use for touch screen desktops and this is not
an exception. We are pleased with 1920x1080 wide-range screen, it is glossy and
easy to watch from many angles and has no grainy which affect to some
touch-screens. Color reproduction is a little translucent and pale tones are
slightly dull, but do not affect much on our PC enjoyment.
As many all-in-one systems, 520 is
designed for entertainment purposes. It has a single DVB-T tuner, so you can
connect an antenna to watch or record standard-definition digital TV, as well
as using DVD-RW drive for watching movies. PC is also equipped with a graphics
chipset AMD Radeon HD 6450A. It is not designed to play 3D games – our 720p
resolution test using Dirt 3 has created 22fps frame rate - but you'll also be
able to run the lighter games. TouchSmart has no graphics input or output, so
you can’t use it as a monitor for game holding or video source for the
projector. There are 4 USB ports and two USB3 ports for external devices.
Speakers integrate better and create
much greater volume than other all-in-one. Audio processing branded Beats - in
dynamic range compression and bass increase - is applied automatically. It does
not turn built-in speaker into audio reference monitor, but it works quite well
to reduce the impression of small volume that is usually associated with
integrated speakers.
520-1080uk has Intel Core i5-2390T
2.7Ghz processor. It is energy-efficient Core i5 and will not break any
performance record, as low total points of 59 in our tests showed it. This
problem and the price of $1,400 are the biggest obstacle of the PC. With the
same amount of money, you can buy ET2410INTS-B024C all-in-one of Asus, which
has more powerful processor, larger screen, Blu-ray drive, 6GB instead of 4GB
RAM, and more ports .
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Summary
Comment. TouchSmart 520 is quite
good all-in-one PC, but it is weak and just has a few features at this price.
All-in-one
PC. Intel Core i5-2390T, 4GB RAM, 1.5TB hardware, AMD Radeon HD 6450A,
DVD+/-RW+/-DL, LCD touch csreen 23in wide-range, Windows 7 Home Premium
64bit, 457x580x217mm, RTB 1 year warranty.
Energy
consumption:
3W stand by, 57W idle, 73W active.
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Yoyotech
Warbird Dark Iron CS
5 stars
Price: $1,500
We asked Yoyotech to design us a
quiet, compact gaming PC for evaluation. PC does not meet our expectations but Warbird
Dark Iron CS provides excellent performance. Intel Core i5-2500K processor has
been overclocked to 4.6GHz, allowing it to pass our test with a total points of
139.
The core specification is supplemented
with 8GB 1600MHz RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card and 1GB memory.
It is one of our favorite graphics cards and has its own position in the
challenging test of high quality 3D graphics, creating 59.6fps frame rate in
Dirt 3 and 32.3fps in Crysis 2, so even the heaviest games can play at aco
resolution. Card has 2 DVI ports and a HDMI port and supports maximum 2
monitors simultaneously.
PC has less storage, but it is
impressive. 60GB start disk is SSD SATA3, it keeps your PC start up in just a
few seconds. Second start disk is a slim 500GB hard drive. It is also has
DVD-RW disk. It left 3 no using SATA2 ports and 2 blank USB3 ports, so you have
place to improve. There are 6 blank 3½ inch drive bays and a redundant 5¼ drive
bay.
Fractal Design chassis looks sharp,
with matte black interior and glossy white accents, and stable design. It lacks
soundproof of other Fractal Design chassises, but its disk rayes are reduced
vibration, and a number disk at the back of PC allows you to adjust the chassis
fan speed, so you can compromise between cooling capacity and noise. The system
is quite noisy if all fans running at full capacity but only makes a small buzz
when you turn down the number disk. I do not have any problem in tests with the
slow running fan. Processor has big cooler Enermax, but it is similar to PSU
Enermax NAXN 550W does not create much noise.
Motherboard Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P-B3 has
10 USB ports at the back, two of these are USB3, as well as a FireWire port, 1
PS/2 port and the audio analogue 7.1 output, along with optical S/PDIF for
digital audio. Inside, there are two empty PCI slots and 2 PCI-E x1 slots – 3rd
slot is blocked by graphics card. There are 2nd PCI-E x16 slot.
PC comes with Hanns.G HH231DPB 24in
monitor with DVI and VGA inputs. We are interested in backlight and anti-glare
surface, reducing the top light reflection but also making the colors less
vivid. Its color is not the most accurate kind we've ever seen but we
appreciate the warmth and their vivid.
This is excellent system for anyone
who want great gaming performance and fast starting up time. Chillblast’s
Fusion Whisper is quieter, while Hellspawn XFire of Wired2Fire is a bit
stronger but more expensive, but Warbird Dark Iron CS is worth to stand with 5
stars.
Consumption
Comment. This stable design PC gaming
combines high-end components with top performance
Desktop PC. Intel Core i5-2500K, 8GB
RAM, 60GB+500GB hardware, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti, DVD+/-RW+/-DL, LCD
24in wide-range, Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit, 480x240x515mm, RTB 1 year
warranty.
Energy Consumption: 3W stand by, 101W idle,
282W active.
