HP Pavillion MS228uk review

HP’s Pavillion MS228uk is a compact and surprisingly unobtrusive all-in-one PC. It’s not big enough to replace the TV in your sitting room and it doesn’t have extra features like a touchscreen or even a wireless keyboard and mouse. But all this helps make it relatively inexpensive.

The 18.5in screen, although small by current standards, is bright, with rich, accurate colours and a non-reflective finish. Unlike some budget net-top all-in-one PCs, the MS228uk comes compete with a DVD RW drive, so you’ll have no trouble installing software or watching movies. There also a memory card reader for uploading your photos. The 500GB hard disk isn’t as big as we’d like from a desktop system, but it’s in line with a lot of all-in-one PCs.

Unfortunately, once you’ve scratched the surface, the MS228uk starts to look far less appealing. The 18.5in integrated display might be widescreen, but it’s certainly not high definition, with a resolution of just 1,366×768. This means you have no more desktop space than a far smaller laptop. That said, the screen itself is bright with vibrant colours and even backlighting.

The ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics chipset can handle 1080p HD video, but there’s no DVI or HDMI output, so you can’t hook it up to your TV to make the most of this. The onboard audio is limited to 2.1 stereo – there are two line outputs and a mic input, but these can’t be reassigned as 5.1 audio outputs.

Due to the limitations of the 1,366×768 screen resolution, we were unable to run our usual 1,680×1,050 tests of CoD4 and Crysis. Instead, we ran them at the Pavilion’s maximum resolution, which produced frame rates of just 3fps in CoD4 and 1.5fps in Crysis. You’re unlikely to be able to play anything much more demanding than a game of mah-jong.

The MS228uk is highly energy efficient, with a standby power consumption of 2.7W and idle consumption of 48W. This is thanks to its energy-efficient dual-core AMD Athlon II X2 250u processor. Unfortunately it’s one of AMD’s least powerful processors too; though there’s 4GB of RAM fitted which should be sufficient for any task you’d want to undertake on a PC this powerful. As might be guessed from this modest specification, the MS228uk doesn’t perform at all well, even by the standard of cheap all-in-one PCs, with an overall score of just 42 in our benchmark tests.

Although its wired and wireless networking capabilities aren’t exactly cutting edge, the 10/100 Ethernet port and 802.11b/g integrated wireless adaptor shouldn’t be a problem unless you regularly copy large files over your network.

The MS228uk isn’t without its charms. It looks good, is power efficient and has a great screen. Despite a few nice touches, it’s poor value for money. Similarly-priced laptop or desktop systems can provide significantly better performance for the money. If you have your heart set on an all-in-one, then you really need to spend more to get something decent. The Asus ET2203T (see Labs, Shopper 266) costs almost £250 more but is a full entertainment PC, with a 22in HD screen and a Blu-ray drive.