MSI Modern AM241P 11M
This compact all-in-one has decent performance and good connectivity, but important caveats apply
SCORE ★★★☆☆
PRICE Core i7, £875 (£1,050 inc VAT) from box.co.uk
We’re used to seeing all-inone PCs from the major manufacturers, but Taiwan’s Micro-Star International, better known by the initials MSI, is a new name in town. The AM241 comes in two flavours: an Intel Core i7-based machine with 16GB of RAM at £875 exc VAT and a Core i5 model with 8GB of RAM at a lower £666 exc VAT. We tested the former, marked by a “P” at the end of its model name.
Pull the AM241P out of its box and you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve bought a monitor rather than a PC. At 541 x 175 x 407mm and weighing just shy of 4.5kg with the stand, it’s the same size and weight as a typical 24in monitor. Aesthetically, the AM241P’s otherwise anonymous looks are helped by the narrow 6mm top and side bezels and the reasonably slender 23mm chin below the screen.
There’s no way to access the AM241P’s core components – the “factory sealed” sticker over one of the screw heads means what it says – but a hatch tucked away on the rear right-hand side of the unit conceals a 2.5in SATA3 drive bay for adding more capacity.
The supplied 512GB Western Digital SSD produced sequential read and write speeds of 2,238MB/sec and 1,721MB/sec respectively in our tests, which translates to speedy realworld performance. The quad-core Core-i7 1165G7 processor inside our test machine is a mobile chip, but in tandem with that SSD and 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 RAM it powered to 146 in the PC Pro benchmarks.
That’s fast for such a processor, but the Dell OptiPlex 7090 Ultra Desktop ( see issue 321, p48) – a unit so compact that it slides inside specially made stands and can effectively turn monitors into all-in-ones – managed 161 with its Core i5 mobile GPU. Unlike that Dell, though, the AM241P goes about its business almost silently. Even when the fans are running at full speed, you can barely hear them.
The AM241P also wins for connectivity. Two USB-A 2 ports sit on the rear alongside an HDMI in and an HDMI 2.0 output – the former so you can use the unit as a dumb monitor, bypassing the operating system completely – and a Gigabit RJ-45 connector. On the left you’ll find a 3.5mm combo jack along with two USB-A and two USB-C ports – all are USB 3.2 Gen 2 but the latter don’t support video output. This is a waste when the Intel chipset can support four displays.
A final USB-A 2 port sits on the back just above where the stand is connected to the main unit; that port is reflected so truthfully on the glossy plastic that I actually tried to plug something into the reflection. Wireless communications are handled by an Intel AX201 card that supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
MSI builds a pair of 3W loudspeakers into the bottom of the unit, but they’re dismal with little volume and nothing in the way of bass. There’s no built-in webcam, but MSI bundles a 1080p USB camera with a privacy shutter that you can hook over the top of the screen. The image quality is impressive, the performance of the dual microphones less so; they only picked up what I said when I shouted so loudly the other person could probably have heard me with their naked ears. MSI also bundles a basic 2.4GHz wireless keyboard and mouse set, but the key word there is basic.
Unfortunately, the same can be said of the 23.8in IPS panel. It started brightly: a peak brightness of 348cd/m2 is more than adequate for an indoors-only machine and 94% sRGB gamut coverage is strong. The best Delta E figure I could obtain for colour accuracy was 2.33, but that was after fiddling about with the unnecessarily large number of colour profiles that are accessible via two distinct menus. That Delta E result isn’t shockingly bad
– the average user is unlikely to notice inaccuracies if the result score is less than three – but this screen won’t reproduce photos faithfully enough for professionals.
You can adjust the height of the display so that the bottom edge is anywhere between a minimum of 85mm and a maximum of 220mm from the surface it’s standing on. While adjusting the display height is simplicity itself, our review unit sat slightly crooked. Since there’s no way to adjust the left-right angle, however, I just had to live with it. At any height, the screen can be tilted between 5 ° forward and 15° back.
MSI’s Modern AM241P is a competent all-in-one PC and the Core i5 model looks solid value for money. At £875 exc VAT, however, the Core i7 version is expensive for a 24in all-in-one, and there isn’t enough here to lure businesses; the price includes Windows 10 Home and the Core i7-1165G7 doesn’t support Intel’s vPro tech. If you’re buying for the home, a machine such as the Lenovo AiO on p46 is more attractive – and I would point people to Dell’s Inspiron 24 5000 All-in-One, which is £175 cheaper with a similar specification.
There are plus points – the near-silent operation, turn of pace, storage expansion bay and plethora of connectivity options (video outputs aside) – so if MSI brings the price of the Core i7 version closer to that of the i5, it will transform itself from an also-ran into a compelling purchase.
SPECIFICATIONS
4-core 2.8GHz (4.7GHz burst) Intel Core i7-1165G7 Intel Iris Xe graphics 16GB DDR4 RAM 512GB SSD 2.5in SATA bay 23.8in non-touch 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display HDMI 2.1 input HDMI 2 output 2 x USB-A 3.2 3 x USB-A 2 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gigabit Ethernet 3.5mm combo jack 2 x 3W speakers Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 Windows 10 Home 1yr limited warranty 541 x 175 x 407mm (WDH) 4.5kg
“The AM241P goes about its business almost silently. Even when the fans are running at full speed, you can barely hear them”