Asus Zen AiO Z240IC Review: A high-res all-in-one with class. Like, you know… an iMac - givensmaysion1973

Thither are times when Asus's designs match Apple's. Indeed, anything with "Zen" in front of IT at least attempts the feat, and the keep company's Zen AiO Z240IC all-in-unitary has approximate to capturing that iMac-like magic. Out of the corner, we were impressed with this all-in-one's attractive pattern and aluminium build.

After firing up the Zen AiO we were doubly impressed. Apple would rattle down connected about "retina," but in PC-realm what you're speaking about is a 3840×2160 UHD resolution display (commonly celebrated as 4K). The high density of the pixels makes everything super smooth-looking, and if you make a UHD demo file at it… Yowser. If there were HDMI input, I'd suppose the Z240IC might make sentiency arsenic a dorm-room entertainment halfway. As is, IT'll have to settle for close to perfect.

Performance and components

Every factor aboard the Zen AiO is near say-of-the-art: a Skylake Substance i7-6700T CPU, 16GB of DDR4/2133 system memory, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M GPU (as recovered as the integrated HD 530 graphics), and the cherry on top—a 512GB PCIe-based M.2 Samsung SM951 SSD. That's good stuff right there. Hardly just in case 512GB isn't capacious decent to hold all your stuff, there's also a 1TB hard drive happening board. There's little chance the average buyer wish want to upgrade those components. A good thing in an all-in-one, because, without prodigious skills—you can't.

Asus

The Zen AiO has res publica of the art ports, but all of them are on the back.

The Zen AiO's port selection is overstep-notch too: four USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, and one USB 3.1 type-C port. There are also headset and mic jacks, two HDMI 1.4 outputs, one gigabit ethernet port and an SDHC plug-in reader. My only gripe here is that they'Re all on the back, which makes the simple work of inserting a thumb drive a slew harder than information technology should be. Get a USB 3.0/3.1 dock while you'Ra shopping.

One port I did young lady, atomic number 3 I said up front, is HDMI input with HDCP 2.2 hold up. That puts a muffler connected my visual modality of the Z240IC as a future-proof student residence-room entertainment center. Much of the forthcoming UHD content testament be transcript-protected with the latter, and it would be overnice to embody able to play it on this display.

Performance

Aside from some initial Intel driver issues (graphics and RealSense) the Zen AiO experience was butter. IT posted a 2,930 in PCMark's Work conventional test and a 3,386 in the Notional white-bread test. That basically means it's far on the far side good for most desktop chores.

3Dmark scored the 960M at 4,076 in Firestrike (not Extreme or Immoderate), 13,262 in Flip Frogman, and 17,433 in Cloud Gate–meaning it's good for moderate gaming loads at moderate resolutions. Tomb Plunderer benchmarked at 30fps at 2160p and 92fps at 1080p. Bioshock ran at 102fps at 720p, 147fps 1080p, and 46fps at 2160p. For the damage, the Zen AiO is an able gamer as long-range as you're willing to pretermit the resolution down to 1080.

The Samsung SSD learn consecutive at 1,888.4MBps and wrote at 1,511.1MBps with ridiculously low access times. If you're never seen the stats for a PCIe SSD, those are not misprints. IT makes the uncastrated Windows live pretty so much wait-relinquish.

Note: Our first unit's display would zonk out with no way to reactivate IT, and the sec unit's flickered due to unripe Intel drivers. If you get an early version of the Elvis AiO, update these before you call service.

Input ergonomics

Asus

Though they're colored to tally the system, the mouse and keyboard would looking at tied fitter if they were "brushed" like the chassis.

The Battery-acid AiO Z240IC has a ten-point touchscreen and ships with a matching (mostly) wireless keyboard and mouse. I enjoyed the typing feel of the Chiclet-fashio keyboard, and the mouse was delicately, but I do receive two slight nits. Both plastic peripherals could use good a bit more solidity-evoking heft. And, though the colors of the keyboard and mouse match the main unit of measurement's, they miss its touched-aluminum texture. That minutiae may non look worthy of comment, only when you're competing with a company so much A Apple that sweats the inside information, these things count.

Asus

The UHD display has better emblazon than most and there's no pixelation as with lower answer displays.

Price and advice

The Zen AiO rivals an iMac, but you definitely get more bang for the shoot. Where a similarly equipped 21.5-inch iMac costs $2,400 these days, the Z240IC costs $1,899. And the former has no discrete GPU for gaming, has a smaller screen and uses a 5th-gen Broadwell Mainframe vs. the Zen AiO's 6th-gen Skylake chip. That's a pretty hefty savings and a big hardware difference. But in my opinion, an iMac delivers a common sense of elegance that Asus hasn't quite captured. Then again, no PC vendor has.

I like the Zen AiO Z240IC. I corresponding it a lot. It's stylish, it has a fantastic display, and it's fast for both everyday use and gambling. Truly, if my only complaints pertain the placement of ports and the rouge connected the mouse and keyboard, you know IT's a pretty darn good all-in-one.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/418582/asus-zen-aio-z240ic-review-a-high-res-all-in-one-with-class-like-you-know-an-imac.html

Posted by: givensmaysion1973.blogspot.com

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