Asus Zen AiO Z240ICGT review – the iMac has a Windows rival

Many all-in-one PCs aim for premium status, but few manage to be the whole package, and even fewer are able to hold a candle to Apple’s iMac. It’s still the most complete system for those needing lots of power and lots of pixels – with a price to match. Asus could actually compete with the Zen AiO, though; it’s a high-end all-in-one with styling to match the specification. With looks consistent with the firm’s Zen laptop range, the Zen AiO’s gold-tinted, brushed metal chassis and sharp, machined corners make it look and feel every bit the premium computer.

Form appears to have truly beaten function, however, with Asus mimicking Apple’s approach to port placement; four USB3 ports, two HDMI ports, an SD card reader and 3.5mm audio jack are all rear-and-centre, making them comically difficult to reach. Unlike Apple iMacs, which are generally easy to rotate despite their size, the Zen AiO’s flipper-like stand is somewhat harder to spin around. If you regularly use the ports you’ll want to buy a more easily-accessible USB hub, while others will simply cope with the occasional frustration. Still, we would gladly have interrupted the smooth curves for a set of more easily accessible ports.

All that is forgotten though once you look at the 24in, 3,840×2,160 resolution screen. With the Zen AiO very much aimed at professionals as well as home users, real attention has been paid to colour performance; with 99.9% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut and a delta-E of just 3.7, it’s a seriously impressive panel. With a peak brightness of 303cd/m2, it’s also more than bright enough.

Our only gripe is the fairly high 0.33cd/m2 black level. This would be acceptable on a cheaper PC, but on one looking to entice video producers and photographers it’s slightly too high, making it difficult to differentiate blacks with very dark shades of grey and so compromising detail.

The built-in speakers match the great picture with impressive audio. Music, explosions and speech all sounded surprisingly full of depth and were, for the most part, very clear. At 100% volume the chassis begins to vibrate slightly, but keep it just below that (which is quite loud enough) and this a great-sounding all-in-one.

There’s also an integrated Intel RealSense camera above the display, which allows for advanced motion controls and even some motion-based gaming. The list of titles that support RealSense is admittedly very small, but it is at least useful for Windows 10’s ‘Hello’ feature, which lets you log on instantly using just your face.

The bundled mouse and keyboard aren’t up to the same standard as Apple’s efforts; they might be wireless, but are made from plastic. The keyboard has a decent amount of travel and isn’t overly spongy, but we’d expect more than a basic two-button-and-scroll-wheel mouse with a £1,500 PC.

Performance and benchmarks

The quad-core, 2.8GHz Core i7-6700T processor inside the Zen AiO is a slightly underclocked version of Intel’s desktop i7-6700, but it can still hit a maximum boost speed of 3.6Ghz. Paired with 16GB of DDR4 RAM, the Zen AiO managed an overall benchmark score of 86. This included a rather low score of 70 in the image rendering benchmark and a high point of 98 in the video rendering portion. The processor is hyper-threaded, meaning each of its four cores are treated as two, significantly improving performance in complex tasks. The low image editing score points to slightly sluggish single-core performance; we suspect some of this lethargy is down to the slow, 5,400rpm 1TB hard disk.

Noise is kept to a minimum, even when the fans are at full speed. The PC never gets particularly hot, either, even during the toughest of tasks, which is a testament to the design of the system and the energy efficiency of the components inside.

The Zen AiO is also a decent gaming machine, thanks to the 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card. It’s a chip you’d normally find in mid-range gaming laptops, but we’ve known it to produce desktop-level performances in the past. In the Dirt Showdown benchmark at Full HD resolution it achieved 46.2fps, while in the extra challenging Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark it managed a slightly unplayable 18fps. Disabling the notoriously challenging SSAA anti-aliasing improved this to 59fps. It’s a capable gaming PC as long as you’re prepared to stick to 1080p and stick to High detail settings. More casual offerings, such as Minecraft won’t trouble it one bit.

Conclusion

The Zen AiO is a premium all-in-one PC with plenty of power and a terrific screen. It can even play a few games. Our only reservation is the sluggish hard disk, which seriously harms its credibility when working with photos and high-resolution video. If you’re not going to be working with this sort of material professionally, it’s a decent buy.

The whole lot costs £99 less than Apple’s entry-level 27in 5K iMac. For your money you get similar performance, better graphics capabilities but a slightly smaller screen and cheaper peripherals. It’s horses for courses, really. If you want Windows and all it offers, the Zen AiO is a great choice. Otherwise, we’d probably shell out an extra £99 for the iMac.

Of course for this much money you could buy a far more powerful desktop PC and a brilliant monitor, such as the Scan 3XS Z170 Performance GTK6 and Asus PB279Q. But that’s the price you pay for a pretty-looking all-in-one.