This is probably the most interesting time to buy an all-in-one PC. Given the situation in India, work from home will continue. Schooling from home will continue. Watching films on TV will continue. Now think ahead. Yup, the second wave of the pandemic has left us in a mess but hopefully vaccines will come to our rescue sooner rather than later. Even when things improve a bit, many offices will continue to allow employees to have a flexible schedule. Third, children are usually given cheap laptops to work with but then again, they are not that cheap either. Also, ask yourself if laptops are ergonomically bad for their health.

A few days before Apple announced the redesigned iMac, which is coming in several colours, ASUS AiO (V241) dropped in for review. This is an all-in-one, meaning it can tackle a lot of tasks without you having to worry about anything. Let’s dive in.

As a WFH device

The V241 just has a display with the CPU inside it while the peripherals connect via Bluetooth. It’s a great way to save space: You can have a biggish screen in your home office or in the bedroom without having to worry about fitting in.

Of course, all-in-one is not a new category but the importance of it is best understood now. The V241 has very thin bezels on three sides — down to 2mm — giving an immersive quality while at the bottom is a thickish panel which has all the tech hiding inside, including some good speakers. The 23.8-inch full HD LED display (1920 x 1080) has good viewing angles, which is great if you decide to watch a film with your family members. Keeping the screen company is ASUS SonicMaster audio which gets modestly loud — though it could have been slightly better — with sufficient bass. What you get are two 3W internal stereo speakers. There are zero complains about colour reproduction, which is good enough for home use.

The 720p camera with mics is at bottom. At first I thought it would be a huge problem because any camera looking upwards can give a clear view of, say, an unkempt moustache or even worse. Frankly, it wasn’t a problem at all. The camera scores well during videoconferences.

Something more than WFH

Here’s a fair idea of what my work involved on the desktop in the last few days. I am one of those horrible people who keep 50 tabs open on the browser just to get that feeling of being more productive. Yes, it kills the RAM and also makes me appear scatterbrained to my friends and family members. Nonetheless, I learned that this PC can handle it.

Second, there was a fair amount of Adobe Photoshop time, mostly restricted to simple picture correction. A lot of writing and Slack. Next came transferring heavy files. There was some basic video editing. At no point did I feel the computer was slowing down. Helping to get work done is an Intel Core i5 1135G7 CPU and on the graphics front — Intel Iris Xe (11th Gen), Intel UHD (10th gen and Gemini).

What I like most about the PC is the hybrid storage — SSD storage plus 1TB of SATA HDD. Each time, I restarted the computer, it took hardly a few seconds. Saving heavy photo and video files took hardly a couple of seconds. In way of ports, the machine has you covered with four USB3.2, one USB 2.0, one HDMI out, one HDMI in, a microphone-headphone combo and a LAN port.

It’s also a TV

Below the screen is a round button. Press it and you switch between PC mode and watching films, say, via Fire TV Stick. Since the viewing angles are good, it’s not a problem sitting around it. Once the button is pressed, it hardly takes three seconds to switch between modes.

Should you buy it?

The only drawback is the plastic keyboard. The keys have good travel but unlike the main unit, there is something missing on the keyboard. Apart from that, this is a very hardy machine. Personally, I prefer working on a desktop PC. It allows better performance at a reasonable cost while it makes me sit in a chair, just like at office! ASUS AiO (V241) is one of those no-nonsense machines that looks snazzy and can also be a workhorse.

Device: ASUS AiO (V241)

Price: Rs 61,990 onwards

High notes

• Excellent design

• Can also be used as a TV

• Enough for WFH as well as some light photo/video editing

Muffled note

• The keyboard can get slightly creaky when typing at high speeds