Lenovo H320 40411FU is a very strong performer as compared to other small PCs in the market. It has got a Core i5 650 processor which is a dual core chip along with Intel’s HyperThreading technology due to which it can simulate 2 extra processing threads when ever necessary. However, this won’t be of much use on the H320 if you are going to do applications which use the true quad core processors like Phenom II X4 in the HP s5660f.  The HP machine has a zippy 3.2 GHz clock speed on the Core i5 processor and in my labs, it gave me really impressive speeds. On the other side, Lenovo H320 was fast in iTunes audio encoding, Photosshop CS 5 image processing, and also while playing QuickTime movie when encoding the audio files in iTunes. At this price, the Lenovo H320 40411FU is good for a gaming PC. You won’t be able to play the titles in all their glory but when I played Dragon Age II demo at the full HD resolution of 1,920x1,080  [...]

Latest set of rumors lurking around on the Internet say that Apple is rolling out new iMacs and it will be having the latest Core i5 or i7 processors inside. It is also said that the new computers will sport the new Thunderbolt processor. These new set of iMac might be out by May 3, Tuesday and Apple will be announcing them shortly before bringing them in the market for sale. Apple has been a bit late with the update for iMac. First PCs having the new processors were out in January 2011, and Apple shipped their MacBooks which had the Sandy Bridge architecture shortly. Apple hasn’t upgraded their iMac line up; it has been running on older hardware since June last year. Apple might be late to bring out iMacs having the new processor but in a way, it is lucky too. Intel said in January that there was a flaw in the architecture of these new processors and shipments  [...]

Before this, I got to review the HP TouchSmart 600 and it immediately became my favorite because of the useful features that it had to offer. But I am not so sure about the HP TouchSmart 300 which is a lower end machine. It costs $899 and this all-in-one touch screen PC has decent performance but the screen is smaller and it lacks a lot of impressive features that were found on the higher end model. There is a cool recipe organizing software which will certainly appeal to housewives looking for kitchen PC but there are better alternatives for the price if you are looking for a home entertainment solution. Of course, there is also an option of full fledged desktops if you are looking for general purpose productivity. HP TouchSmart 300 is fixed configuration machine and it is available at a lot of retail stores. There are few preconfigured version of the TouchSmart 300s and also a fully customizable version on the manufacturer’s Website. You can play with the CPU, hard  [...]

Desktop machines are rare these days as everyone is going for either slim line PCs or all-in-one desktop computers. But this doesn’t mean that there is no demand for full fledged desktops in the market at all. HP Pavilion p6720f is a proof that people still buy them because of the versatility that they give in terms of expansion. Upgrading all-in-ones or slim PCs isn’t that easy; for the latter, you need to use smaller hardware. Pavilion is giving you one vacant PCI Express graphics card slot along with 3, 1x PCIe slots for putting other upgrades. Gateway has a graphics slot and one single 1x PCIe input. These free slots don’t really translate for offering out of the box functionality instantly but I would recommend you to pay more for the upgrade potential. I wasn’t really surprised to see that the HP Pavilion p6720f had great performance in my lab tests and this is due to the presence of AMD quad-core processor inside.  [...]

Dell is back with the new Inspiron Zino HD, it costs $750 and has beefier specs than its predecessor. Apart from that, there is a Blu-ray optical drive and the graphics too have been upgraded. This makes the computer a more credible living room solution. However, the slow performance makes the Dell Inspiron Zino HD more expensive than a standard Windows living room desktops or Apple’s Mac Mini. I’ll recommend you this system if you are looking for a tiny Windows based PC having a Blu-ray drive for providing entertainment in your living with minimum hassle of setup. But if performance matters more to you, there are other systems giving better value for money. Dell Inspiron Zino HD is offered in different configurations, the base model costs $300 and it can go up to $750 with all the high end options. Dell says the highest end $750 model is ‘Ultimate Entertainment’ system on the Website and it is the only option if you are looking for Zino along with a Blu-ray  [...]

Gateway SX2850-33 series has a good collection of desktop PCs under its hood and this will certainly confuse you about which one to go for. The one that I got in my labs was a slim tower desktop and will serve well to anyone looking for a budget PC. I would recommend you to people looking for a good living room PC for entertainment purposes courtesy of the slim design. At a price tag of $549, I this is certainly not a cheap Nettop but it does offer the same performance and connectivity options. This machine has Intel Core i3 dual core processor and wireless networking. These two features separate this system from others in the SX line up. However, there are fewer connectivity options and less hard drive space here. A Wi-Fi card is pretty rare in SX series and this alone will lure living room PC enthusiasts in to the deal. I would also recommend it to anyone looking for a budget capable, small desktop. It's been an year since the Gateway first got SX  [...]

I haven’t started testing gaming desktops with DirectX 11 till now and was pretty curious to see how the F131 would do with Metro 2033, a very demanding game for DirectX11. I don’t use the game formally especially because Nvidia was involved in its development, just like ATI and AMD was involved with Tom Clancy's HAWX. I would have preferred a neutral title. Since the F131 is an Nvidia based gaming machine, the Metro 2033 will certainly work quite well. In regular gameplay, the experience was quite nice but when I pushed up the physics settings and image quality, the Maingear F131 gave me just 25 fps. The game is still playable but can slowdown occasionally. There are not a lot of games out there that the Maingear F131 will struggle with. There are a few that might challenge the machine but you can always tone down the settings for a good looking and smooth gaming experience. Because of the Intel X58 motherboard and the 3 PCI Express  [...]

The Apple iMac 20 inch is the lowest end desktop from Apple but still it is an expensive machine as compared to the Windows counter parts. This system costs more than $1,000 and is powered by a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip this is complemented by 1 GB RAM and 250 GB hard drive which is quite which makes the machine very powerful for even the most demanding applications out there. The price of the Apple iMac 20 inch may be a bit higher but in my labs, this system really proved its worth. The performance of this machine is much better than standard Windows desktops. Multitasking achievements too were pretty impressive. If you yearn for good performance and if high price tag is not a problem, I would readily recommend you this system. There is Apple’s BootCamp which can be used to boot this system either through OSx or Windows XP or Windows Vista. The problem here is this system has just one GB memory. I recommend at least 2 GB memory to run Windows XP or Windows Vista in all its  [...]

When this machine first came in to my labs, I spent some time just staring at the cabinet. Such sci-fi looks are rare in desktop machines; you have to pay a premium for it but fashion conscious people having plenty of money will have no issues. The Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 is powered by an Intel Core i7 900 processor which is really fast. The chip isn’t over clocked out of the box but you can tweak it manually thanks to the liquid cooling system inside. I’m finding it a bit hard to compare the performance of Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 with the other gaming machines that I have had in my labs because this is the first desktop to have an Intel Core i7 900 chip. All other ones were based on Intel Core i7 800 like six-core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T or Dell Studio XPS 7100. Falcon Northwest and Velocity Micro desktops come with an overclocked Intel  [...]

Acer Aspire 5700-U2112 is an excellent all-in-one PC if you watch a lot of movies. It has a 23 inch screen with an HDMI port which makes it better than iMac for watching movies. The machine is powered by a Acer Core i5 560 processor which gave me excellent performance in my lab tests. I won’t recommend this PC to people who run a lot of processor challenging applications. They are better off with a traditional desktop but I can confidently say that this machine is the fastest all-in-one I have ever seen to date. If you are a movie bluff, the Acer Aspire 5700-U2112 won’t disappoint you. It is great for watching HD movies. There is no discrete graphics chip here, all you get is an integrated Intel graphics card but still movies look good. The playback would have stuttered if this machine had a lower CPU but a faster processor like this one covers up for the absence of graphics card pretty well. There were a few hitches but it is certainly not a deal breaker, especially for the price.  [...]