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 1,920×1,080 pixels, things were smooth. For Crysis 2 demo, things got challenging on this PC. The resolution had to be dropped to 1,280×720 pixels and the frame rate too was passable. Keep your expectations reasonable and you won’t have a lot to complain for any of the current titles.

For expansion, there are a few options on the Lenovo H320 40411FU. There is one free RAM slot and there is also an 1xPCI Express card lot. Because of the width of the case, you will need a half height graphics card, if you want to put one. There are three possibilities for upgrade – Nvidia 430 GT or AMD Radeon HD 5670 or 5570. All three cost less than $100.

The external connections on the Lenovo H320 40411FU will certainly meet your expectations but audiophiles might be disappointed. There is VGA and HDMI ports on the graphics card and this will cover most of the display options. For DVI connections, you will need an adapter. 6 ports of USB 2.0 are on this case for which is again more than enough. If you own 7.1 speaker sets or digital audio devices, I would recommend you to look elsewhere. I also wish there were FireWire and eSATA ports here; they are now rare at this price range.

The manufacturer is giving a one year warranty for parts and labor on this PC.

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 of some motherboards were stopped because of this. Some hardware that was already shipped was recalled.

So will you be buying these new iMacs having the faster processor? Or you are happy with the older models? Some say that the previous iMac is already fast enough and hence more speed isn’t a priority. But do let me know what you think by posting your comments below.

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 drive capacity, memory and other such features. But there are some options which cannot be changed like the 20 inch touch screen, adjustable built-in Webcam, wireless networking, and HPs suite of touch based software.

HP TouchSmart 300 is good enough for displaying anywhere and I would recommend it more for kitchen purposes for the recipe organizer that it has. According to me, the Recipe Box application is the best feature of this all-in-one machine and tech-crazy chefs will certainly drool on it.

I would also recommend the HP TouchSmart 300 in your kitchen for watching videos or for playing music looking at the small size. The chassis is 21.5 inches wide, eight inches deep (when the stand is fully extended) and 16 inches high. This system will fit on countertops better than the higher end and larger TouchSmart 600. But I am recommending it only by looking at the Recipe Box application. If you don’t really need a computer while cooking or if you are looking for a kitchen media player that is based on Windows, my best bet would be Gateway One ZX4800-02 which also has the same combo or DVD drive, touch screen, and 20 inch display for $150 less.

HP TouchSmart 300 can’t be recommended if you don’t have any problems of space. There are other options like the Acer Aspire Z5610 which costs $899 and comes with a bigger 23 inch screen.

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. It drags behind Gateway and Asus systems on the clock speed focused tests but the latest HP could handle multi-core friendly and multitasking apps very well. There are a lot of programs like games, media creating apps coming out and even Windows 7 OS now supports multiple processor cores. Hence you will see a great benefit from systems like HP who have four processor cores. Intel is out with Sandy Bridge processors and they are much faster than HP Pavilion p6720f Phenom II X4 processor. But still casual computer users will be satisfied with the overall performance of this HP system.

HP Pavilion p6720f does offer room for expandability but if you want to put in a discrete graphics card, it can’t be done directly. The 250 watt power supply is impotent for anything more than a lower midrange graphics card. Other options for upgrade include spare RAM slot, one empty bay for hard drive but the cage is quite clunky and hence you will struggle to fit in the hard disk inside.

You will have to put in a graphics card inside if you want HDMI output. The mother board has just VGA and DVI outputs.

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 drive. This model can be configured with more RAM, bigger hard drive and even different colors for the top plastic plate. However, there are no options for processor and graphics card; you just get AMD Phenom II X4 processor and faster ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 graphics chip respectively.

The components are good enough for playing HD video and I didn’t have any problem streaming HD video content from the Web. Blu-ray movies too played without any hiccups. The Dell Inspiron Zino HD is 3.25 inches high, 7.75 inches wide and long and in the box, you get 802.11n wireless networking and HDMI video output. This makes the system a power companion to your HDTV.

The inclusion of Blu-ray optical drive is what gives the Dell Inspiron Zino HD an advantage over the Apple’s Mac Mini which just has a DVD drive. Apple has been coy over Blu-ray technology and we are really frustrated about the fact that none of the Apple products have Blu-ray drive or even HDMI port. Mac Mini looks prettier than the Dell system though because of the sleek aluminum body and thinner chassis. On the flip side, the Zino has twice the storage space and also comes bundled with wireless keyboard and mouse. Apple doesn’t give any input devices for the Mini. Dell’s Zino is slower than Mac Mini but it is more compelling solution for a living room PC. Both the systems have their own strengths for their prices and hence it is hard to compare them for value.

Dell Inspiron Zino HD according to me, is the best equipped amongst closed-case PCs out there but if you look at slim-tower machines from HP and Gateway, the Dell runs in to some trouble. I reviewed the Gateway SX2850-33 some time ago which cost $550 and I really liked it for a living room PC. It had a fast processor, HDMI port and wireless networking. The Gateway system is also faster than Dell. Zino has faster graphics card and a Blu-ray drive but you can buy the Gateway machine and then spend $150 more for getting it.

It’s been an year since the Gateway first got SX machines. Maybe this is the reason why the company has not updated the design. I am not complaining here, earlier SX models were pretty attractive too. You will love the silver plastic and black exterior on this PC. Due to these looks, you can put the  Gateway SX2850-33 anywhere in your house.

Thanks to its wireless networking capabilities and HDMI output, this machine gives you some flexibility for its use. There is a traditional VGA port too and you can use to connect the system to most of the monitors in the market. The inclusion of HDMI port makes this PC more of a living room product. There won’t be a lot of cable clutter due to the wireless networking and its always nice to have it if you are going to install the PC in a non-traditional place. For wired connectivity, there is a single standard network adapter.

There are other PCs competing with this model but none of them can hold a candle to  Gateway SX2850-33 series. So the choice now comes down to which PC to buy in this lineup itself. Previously, I reviewed the SX2801-01e, which costs roughly the same but there are plenty of differences between the two.

SX2801-01e is based on a slower and older Intel processor and there is no wireless connectivity. However, it has a more RAM and bigger hard drive. You won’t find the extra memory useful if you are just going to use this as a living room PC as you won’t be doing an HD video files editing or other such high end tasks. So you have to choose between either wireless networking and faster overall performance or bigger hard disk. I would recommend you to go for the former combination as the extra hard disk can be easily sacrificed for such desktops.

To sum it up, I would say that the Gateway SX2850-33 is a a good desktop featuring a fast Core i3 processor and Wi-Fi. The latter is very important in a living room PC as it reduces the cable clutter.

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 graphics card slots, you can put in another gaming card for getting more gaming eye candy. If you are putting another graphic card, I would recommend you to upgrade the 750 watt PSU which is very easy to do.

Because of the two big graphic cards inside the Maingear F131, there is just a single PCI Express graphics slot for putting in card upgrades. For memory, there is more flexibility as the 3 slots are unoccupied. You can put a lot of hard drives inside though, there are 5 free bays inside the cabinet.

There are a few surprises for connectivity as well. You get all standard ports like S/PDIF and analog audio, USB 2.0 and FireWire ports on the back and front of the cabinet. The Asus motherboard gives you two eSATA jacks, out of which one is powered and there is also a pair of USB 3.0 ports. A lot of PC vendors out there are less enthusiastic about USB 3.0 ports because there is not a lot of compatible hardware in the market yet but Maingear has been promoting the new technology very aggressively. This gives you 4 different types of ports for external data inputs. This is really impressive for the given price of the desktop.

Maingear F131 come with one year warranty for the hardware and lifetime warranty for phone coverage and labor. There is also discretionalry third party onsite service and two way free shipping for the first thirty days.

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 glory.

If you are going to use Vista on this machine, I would recommend you to add some memory. The memory can be upgraded but you will have to pay a lot of money for it. Increasing memory on Windows computers is a lot cheaper. This is one of the major drawbacks of Apple systems; it costs a lot to upgrade hardware the internal components. On the flip side, this system doesn’t have a lot of parts that can be upgraded.

The 250 GB hard disk of the Apple iMac 20 inch is relatively smaller as compared to what other systems in the market are offering for this price point. Apple should have been more generous here. Above the display, there is a Webcam for video chatting, and on the sides, there is a slot loading DVD drive.

The Apple iMac 20 inch looks really pretty from the back too, everything is nice and clean. There are a basic row of ports on the bottom – a couple of USB, audio in and out, FireWire 800, Apple’s proprietary video jack and Ethernet port for wired internet connectivity. This is an all-in-one system and hence doesn’t occupy a lot of space. The performance of this machine is also much better than any other Windows based desktops in this price range.

Apple gives a wired mouse and keyboard with this machine. The keyboard has a minimalist design and looks really attractive. However, the mouse could have been better. The stubborn single button design and impressive scrolling nub annoyed me a lot of times. You can opt for a wireless mouse for around $20 and a wireless keyboard will cost you $30.

Apple iMac 20 inch comes with one year labor and parts warranty which is on par with what competition is offering. I was not much impressed by the 90 day phone support, it is like an insult. On the manufacturer’s Website, you will find product information, FAQs and manuals.

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 Core i7 875K CPUs and they are really impressive with the fast speeds.

Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 is priced at $1,899 and it is quite appropriate for the internal hardware that it has to offer. You can manually build a gaming system with all these components for a lot less but you won’t get the super sexy cabinet looks. Most of the gamers here will be happy with the stock configuration. However, for ambitious gamers, there are plenty of upgrade options.

You might want to play games at higher details or on larger displays. For such gamers, Acer gives another gaming card slot. You won’t have to upgrade the PSU, the current 750 watt unit will be able to take another GeForce GTX 470 graphics card. Apart from that, this machine can take three more hard drive through the front loading bays. You can also put in another optical drive. All six slots of RAM are occupied with the 12 GB memory. Options for expansion cards include two empty PCI Express 8x slots, a PCI Express 1x slot, and a standard PCI slot. You can put in another graphics card, TV tuner card, wireless networking card, sound card, etc.

Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 also gives you plenty of options for external drives connectivity. On the front, there is a media card reader, two analog audio ports, mini FireWire input and five USB 2.0 jacks. On the back, there are six more USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet jack, standard FireWire, 7.1 analog audio jacks, two eSATA ports and S/PDIF digital audio. There is no USB 3.0 here but I won’t complain about that since it is not that popular at the moment.

For testing, I played Crysis and got decent performance. The Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 was really impressive with Far Cry 2, the combination of Core i7 930 processor, 12 GB RAM and GeForce GTX 480 gaming card delivered superb performance. It was better than even the Falcon Northwest Talon which is more expensive at $2,499. The high end components inside this system will keep it future proof and you won’t have to think about upgrading it anytime soon. This high end hardware also justifies the price tag.

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. There is an HDMI port so if you are not happy with the output, you can connect this system to a large HDTV. There won’t any playback problems here because the input video is not dependant on the host computer now. The playback will be as good as that of a standard TV.

Apart from HDMI, you get a plenty of input options which will certainly come handy. On the left, there are two USB 2.0 jacks. On the right, there is a SD card slot, microphone and headphone jacks and a button for cycling through the down facing keyboard illuminating LED settings. On the back, there are four more USB ports, an eSATA jack, an Ethernet port, a set of 5.1 audio analog jacks and a TV tuner and IR blaster inputs. 5.1 jacks are quite rare in all in one and hence I was delighted to see it here. You might want to connect this system to another audio device but the built in speakers are loud enough for playing movies and music in an average sized room.

I have to say that the Acer Aspire 5700-U2112 is one of the most power efficient all-in-one PCs I have ever seen in my labs. The iMac is miles ahead of the Acer system but I won’t complain about it because no Windows based PC has been able to challenge the prowess of Apple till now.

Acer Aspire 5700-U2112 comes with a one year warranty for labor and parts. You can also visit the manufacturer’s Website for driver downloads and support related resources. The Website is not the best one out there, it is a bit circuitous. I had to spend a lot of time looking for the phone support number and didn’t find it in the end. You won’t find it online but it is there on the warranty card of the computer. You can access the line 24-7 which is the only good thing about the support.