Asus ET2220IUTI review

All-In-One PCs are smaller, better looking and – for many users – more approachable and less intrusive than a hefty desktop tower PC. The Asus ET2220IUTI isn’t particularly good-looking as far as such systems go, but this touchscreen all-in-one will definitely be a better fit for many bedrooms and sitting rooms than your average PC.

It has a 21.5in 1,920×1,080 touchscreen, which works brilliantly with Windows 8. Unfortunately, it’s also very glossy and extremely prone to picking up greasy fingerprints. It’s nice and bright, though, and produces fairly accurate colours, although contrast is a little poor. The multi-touch screen is responsive and hardy enough to stand up to even the frantic hammering we gave it when tapping away at the touchscreen game demos the PC comes with.

We were pleased to find the ET2220IUTI has both HDMI in and out ports, which means that you can both connect a second screen or a projector, and use the PC’s integrated display with other input sources, such as a games console. There’s also a built-in digital TV tuner and a copy of ArcSoft TV to use it with, so you can just plug the PC into your antenna and use it as a Freeview TV. It’s a shame that Windows 8 no longer ships with excellent Media Center, which was built-into Windows 7 as standard.

Microsoft still offers Media Center as an optional download, but you’ll have to pay £50 for it.

With its 21.5in screen, the ET2220IUTI’s large enough to make for a comfortable viewing experience in a bedroom or small living room. The ET2220IUTI’s home entertainment credentials are rounded out by a Blu-ray drive, so you can watch all the latest films at full HD quality.

The integrated speaker, positioned along the bottom of the screen is among the best we’ve ever heard on an all-in-one system, providing good quality music reproduction rather than simply being good enough for games or TV. It’s better than many cheap dedicated speaker sets, but if you want to connect something a bit more serious, or use a headset for gaming, there are 3.5mm headphone and mic ports at the side of the PC.

Gaming is actually possible on this system, although you’ll have to knock the quality and resolution down a bit. We only got a frame rate of 19.2fps from Dirt Showdown at a resolution of 1,280×720, 4x AA and high quality, but reducing that to medium quality and 2x AA gave us a playable frame rate of 27.6fps. This is thanks to the 1GB Nvidia GeForce 610M graphics processor, which is up to playing the vast majority of modern 3D games if you don’t insist on the very best graphical quality.

The 3GHz Intel Core i5-3330 processor is very capable, too, particularly as this is the full desktop processor. That means that it has four cores, rather than being a dual-core model like many of the mobile Core i5 processors found in laptops and thin all-in-one PCs. The PC scored 82 overall in our newly-updated benchmark tests. Between this processor and 6GB of memory, you’ll be able to run any software you want for the foreseeable future, even if you do a lot of multi-tasking. It’s a good thing the PC is well-specified, though, as it’s not designed to be easy to upgrade. Unlike some all-in-ones we’ve seen, there aren’t even easy access points to add extra RAM or replace your hard disk.

Fortunately, upgrading storage probably won’t be necessary, as the system comes with a 2TB hard disk, which is easily enough to keep most users’ media and software habits satisfied for a good while. If you want to use external storage, to boost that, there are four USB3 ports – two on the side and two at the back.

There’s an SD card reader at the side of the system, a Gigabit Ethernet port at the back and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi. Asus may have missed a trick here, as it’s not dual-band. There’s also a single USB port, which is best used for the dongle that goes with the wireless keyboard and mouse. The wireless keyboard and mouse are both comfortable to use. The mouse is perhaps better suited to small hands while the keyboard’s flat keys allow for fast, accurate typing.

At £800, this all-in-one is very quick, has a large hard disk, excellent speakers and is even capable of playing games. It’s not the most attractive all-in-one we’ve ever seen, but at this price we’re happy to forgive its looks and it wins a Best Buy award.