Acer Aspire C24-963
A capable performer, but there’s not enough quality here to tempt us away from a separate PC and monitor
PRICE £583 (£699 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk
It’s mean to review the Acer Aspire C24 in the same month as the new 27in Apple iMac ( see p58) because, while the two are both all-in-ones, they couldn’t be further apart in terms of aesthetics or aspirations. The C24 is big on value and light on style, while the iMac is big on style and heavy on the wallet. To hammer home this point, if you want to upgrade the iMac’s SSD from 512GB to the 1TB SSD inside this Acer it costs £200, so almost a third of the Aspire C24.
Instead, this all-in-one should be considered in the context of buying a 24in monitor and a mini PC. Albeit one with mobile rather than desktop components: our review unit (part code DQ.BEREK.002) is based around an Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this choice: while the Aspire will never be crowned speed champion of the world, an overall score of 95 in our benchmarks indicates that it’s fast enough for office applications. Likewise, Geekbench 5 scores of 1,040 and 2,908 (single core and multicore) show that it’s a capable computer.
You can forget about playing demanding games, with the G1 suffix of the processor’s name indicating that it uses the weakest of Intel’s integrated graphics chipsets. It scraped its way to 39.8fps at 720p in the now-antiquated Dirt: Showdown (released in 2012), but Metro: Last Light proved too much even at that resolution – an average frame rate of 24fps is unplayable, and increasing the resolution to 1080p reduced it to 12.3fps.
The C24-963 has a functional 8GB of RAM, and while diagnostic utilities revealed the presence of a second RAM slot, I couldn’t find a way to open the rear to access it. The SSD is similarly hidden, but not only is this a speedy unit – it averaged 2,893MB/sec in AS SSD’s sequential read test and 2,611MB/sec for sequential writes – it also should last you the lifetime of this system in terms of storage. If you do end up wanting more, four USB-A 3 ports sit on the rear.
You only need one of these ports for the bundled RF wireless mouse and keyboard, which are basic devices free from worries such as switchable DPIs or backlighting. If you care about a pleasant typing action or quiet clicks, you’ll rapidly want to replace them with something else. The plastic construction extends to the rest of the C24, and there are no luxuries such as an adjustable height to the screen, or even swivel, but it’s light at 3.2kg and won’t take up much space on the desk. Note that while Acer’s official measurements state it’s 37.2mm deep, that doesn’t include the stand: with that in place, it measures 200mm from back to front.
Apple could learn a lesson about the size of bezels from Acer, but elsewhere the two panels are worlds apart in terms of spec. spec The Aspire’s
“While the Aspire C24 will never be crowned speed champion, our benchmarks indicate that it’s fast enough to run office applications”
23.8in panel uses the same IPS tech as Apple’s, but a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution translates into 93ppi pixel density: text will look grainy if you move close.
Still, it reproduced a respectable 87.8% of the sRGB gamut while an average Delta E of 1.06 shows that it’s colour accurate. A 1,033:1 contrast ratio gives photos punch, and a peak brightness of 328cd/m2 is fine – unless you plan on using it next to a sun-drenched window.
Yet you should be thinking about office duties rather than an entertainment system, because other tests revealed that the panel struggles to reproduce the tougher gamuts of Adobe RGB and DCI-P3, while brightness dipped by up to 20% at the edges. Its built-in speaker is a poor choice for music too, with less bass than a skinless drum. The good news? It’s fine for speech radio and video calls, and the webcam built into the top bezel produces quality that’s good enough for Zoom.
If you have a second monitor to hand, note the HDMI output at the rear of the C24. There’s also an Ethernet port, which could be handy if you find the 802.11ac wireless chip doesn’t deliver results as quickly as you’d like. Built-in Bluetooth may come in handy too.
There’s much to be said for a cheap all-in-one PC. While a 24in screen is limiting, that’s much bigger than any laptop display and you can at least position the keyboard and mouse where you want on the desk.
However, I’m not convinced that the he C24 is your best option; if you can find nd the space, I recommend most people eople buy a compact PC with a nicer monitor (ideally 27in). Not only will you ou be gazing at a superior screen, but that hat PC is likely to be both faster and easier asier to upgrade.