View from the Labs
Forget all-in-ones and limited laptops, says Darien Graham-Smith, the best way to avoid the frustration of cluttered hard disks and stuttering apps is the good old PC
When I told my friends and family I planned to spend a month testing and reviewing desktop PC systems, some expressed surprise. “Does anybody buy those anymore?” was a common response.
It’s true that the regular tower PC is an old-fashioned idea. It’s a throwback to a different time, when computing resources were scarce and expensive. If you were around in the days of Windows 95, you’ll recall the yearning for a faster processor, the unending hunger for extra RAM to make applications run more smoothly, and for a bigger hard disk to save you from the regular agony of the clear-out.
In that context, a modular, expandable system was the perfect choice. You could take home an affordable basic PC today, and save up for future upgrades. Best of all, the downward drift of technology prices meant that, rather than paying a premium for an extra memory module or a larger hard disk, you could wait a year and get the upgrade for half the price.
As the cost of computing power has continued to fall, that sort of flexibility has come to seem less urgent. In my own case, I switched a few years ago to a mid-range all-in-one, reasoning that it would do everything I needed for the foreseeable future. Slick design, and the prospect of regaining some valuable desk space, were all it took to lure me away from the world of the desktop.
Today, I’m not sure I made the right choice. After working with the ten powerful systems in this month’s Labs, I find myself hankering after a new super-fast M.2 SSD. Unfortunately, my all-in-one PC supports mSATA only, and the slimline design affords no possibility of an expansion card.
It’s a similar situation with the display. When I first laid eyes on my 2,560 x 1,440 panel, it seemed like the height of visual luxury. It certainly knocks the socks off a standard 1080p display when it comes to editing digital photos, or working with multitrack audio. Yet after testing this month’s PCs with high-quality 4K monitors, I’m finding it somehow cramped. My upgrade options are, of course, nil: all I can do is flog the thing on eBay and buy a whole new computer.
In truth, I’m tempted to do just that, and go back to the triedand-trusted desktop format. The constant pressure to upgrade may have eased since the 1990s, but the march of progress certainly hasn’t stopped. So where’s the sense in choosing a system that locks you into this year’s technology? Investing in a traditional desktop might lead some to imagine that you’re stuck in the past, but when you think about it, it’s the forward-looking choice.
“With an all-in-one, my upgrade options are nil: all I can do is flog the thing on eBay and buy a whole new computer”