Advent AIO-156 review

The AIO-156 is a smart, all-in-one nettop.

The main unit is built into the base of the monitor and is around the size of a box of chocolates, with a glossy black finish and chrome details. A chunky pivoting arm connects it to the 15.6in widescreen monitor. Resting on a desk, the screen sits over the front of the main unit and can’t be raised very high, but there are VESA mounts on the bottom of the main unit and the screen can swivel 90?, so you could mount it vertically on a wall to save desk space.

In fact, with its touch-sensitive screen, the AIO-156 could be ideal as a second PC in the kitchen or on an office reception desk. Windows XP has limited support for touchscreens, but the release of Windows 7 later this year should make the AIO-156 more attractive if you fancy upgrading it yourself. It’s a shame Advent hasn’t bundled some simple touch-enabled software, though, as MSI has done with its Wind Top.

With integrated Intel graphics, the AIO-156 isn’t able to play HD movies, but the display’s 16:9 resolution of 1,366×768 is ideal for DVD playback. The screen has a glossy finish, so it’s highly reflective, but colours are vibrant and accurate. There are no controls to let you adjust image quality, but this wasn’t a major problem since brightness and contrast were more than acceptable.

It’s good to see WiFi, but Draft-N isn’t supported. There’s also a useful memory card reader built in. Sadly, the rest of the specifications aren’t too impressive, with a 160GB hard disk, no eSATA port and only basic sound outputs. There are no built-in speakers as there are with MSI’s Wind Top, which would have been convenient. It’s worth noting that power consumption is the lowest of all the PCs tested this month.

While the touchscreen goes some way to justifying the high price, the lack of bundled touch-aware software means that the touchscreen will be of little benefit to most people. The AIO-156 isn’t a great performer, either, and will appeal only to those who need low power consumption or want to mount their PC on a wall.