So, you just started shopping for an AIO. The first thing to look at (no pun intended) is the display -- the centerpiece of any AIO. While some less-expensive AIO PCs will come with panels smaller than 23 inches, those are better suited to exceedingly cramped spaces such as classroom labs or dorm rooms. (Go much smaller than that, and you might as well just buy a big-screen laptop.) What you want is a display at least 23 inches on the diagonal -- and larger is better if you can do it. The biggest all-in-ones we've seen to date have curved 34-inch screens.
With a screen 23 inches or larger, you're almost guaranteed a native resolution of at least 1,920 by 1,080 pixels (aka, full HD), and larger screens will go even higher. In many cases, that's up to 4K -- 3,840 by 2,160 pixels -- for a conventionally shaped screen or 3,440 by 1,440 pixels on an ultra-wide display. High resolutions of that kind allow you to view multiple windows side by side or view a spreadsheet three to four pages wide. Indeed, if you're a multitasker, the more screen room, the better.
Though it's not a concern to those with 20/10 vision, a larger screen and a higher native resolution will let you increase the font size on your Word documents or Excel spreadsheets while still keeping a lot of information on the screen at one time. Desktop screens tend to be brighter than laptop displays in general, as well. Look for in-plane switching (IPS) technology for the best screen quality. IPS screens are inherently better at off-axis viewing, so you won't have to sit perfectly centered to see accurate colors and all the detail in your images.
To touch-screen or not to touch-screen -- that is a question of personal preference. Modern Windows operating systems were designed with touch panels in mind, which makes interacting with your various applications as easy as ever. Although these can be fun and functional for families, a touch screen isn't 100% necessary for everyone, especially if you plan to use the all-in-one like a traditional computer. If you're looking at an Apple iMac all-in-one, on the other hand, the decision is made for you: macOS doesn't take advantage of touch screens, and no Macs include them.
Don't fret either way. Scrolling with a mouse or a touchpad will still be as quick as or quicker than on a touch screen because, with an AIO, you have to reach up to the screen, taking a hand off the keyboard or mouse. Selecting text for copying and pasting is easier with a mouse, too. If you fill out forms online and switch among text-entry boxes, pull-down menus, and checkboxes, you can quickly enter data with a keyboard and mouse.
If you're planning on using the touch screen at least 50% of the time, look for one of the handful of systems with screens that can recline down to horizontal or almost horizontal. This lets you use the system like a large tablet, so you don't have to hold your arm out constantly to use the touch screen. Think about using an ATM: The vertical screen is fine for a 90-second transaction, but it would become tiring after 10 minutes or more. It comes down to simple ergonomics.
Speaking of vertical orientation, the occasional AIO will come with a stand that lets you pivot the screen into a portrait orientation. Portrait mode lets you view content such as webpages and appropriately shaped pictures without wasting space on the sides of the screen. It's a boon for web developers and layout artists still working on print publications. If portrait mode is something you'd be interested in, make sure the system features auto-rotate; without it, you'll need to switch display settings every time you pivot the display. Portrait pivoting is far more common in stand-alone desktop monitors than in AIOs.
PC manufacturers are generally slower to update AIOs than their other products, so some of the units here are still running older processor generations, like Intel's 11th Generation ("Tiger Lake" mobile or "Rocket Lake" desktop-grade) chips. Most systems have, by 2024, adopted Intel 12th Generation ("Alder Lake") or 13th Generation ("Raptor Lake") processors. Any modern processor will help edit photos or videos or run intensive media processes in the background while you work on several tasks in the foreground. We've yet to see an AIO with one of Intel's or AMD's new AI-ready Core Ultra "Meteor Lake," "Lunar Lake," or "Strix Point" chips. Other types of AIO, like ChromeOS desktops, may use less powerful chips, like those from Intel's Pentium line.
AMD's Ryzen chips have appeared in a few all-in-ones, in the form of Ryzen 5 and lower-powered Ryzen 3 processors. Some of our past top picks have been Ryzen models, and the company's chips are turning up in highly regarded powerful laptops. But in general, Intel CPUs dominate the AIO PC market.
Meanwhile, among Macs, Apple's 2021 24-inch iMac was based on the Apple M1 processor, which was a harbinger of the iconic iMac's future. Sure enough, the 2023 iMac came equipped with the M3 chip, 2024's iMac debuted with the M4, and these AIOs (and all Apple computers) will continue to run on Apple's homebrewed silicon for the foreseeable future.
When looking at and comparing CPUs in AIO PCs, a key distinction to work out is whether the AIO uses a full-desktop CPU or a mobile one. All else being equal, a full-desktop chip is preferable. How to tell: Mobile chips from the likes of Intel will have "U," "Gx" (where "x" is a number), "H," or "HQ" appended to the end of the chip model number. A desktop CPU will have no letter at the end, or perhaps "K" or "T." (As mentioned, most desktop AIOs will use Intel chips, as opposed to ones from rival AMD.)
An 8GB helping of DDR4 or DDR5 RAM should be the minimum amount of system memory you settle for. Although 4GB will work fine for the most basic tasks, you'll feel the pinch of such a low-spec computer. Having 8GB or 16GB will let you keep dozens of tabs open on your browser and still have room left over for a demanding program such as Photoshop. Plus, 16GB is the recommended minimum for professional content-creation use.
You won't see them in new models, but avoid traditional spinning hard drives, which are relatively slow at booting and loading apps. Insist on an AIO that uses a solid-state drive (SSD) as the boot drive. (Almost all now do.) If you keep all your files on a central network-attached storage (NAS) device or stored in the cloud, just about any SSD 500GB or larger should be sufficient. That's enough for the operating system and a handful of frequently used programs. Look for a boot drive of at least 1TB capacity if you store heaps of video on your PC. Videos clog up hard drives faster than just about any other file type.
You can have the best of both worlds with an all-in-one PC that boots from an SSD but has an additional spinning hard drive for storage, though that arrangement is rare nowadays. If you're a power user, look for at least a 256GB SSD boot drive and 1TB of supplemental hard drive storage. You'll need more storage (2TB to 4TB) if you keep your entire video, music, and photo collection on your AIO.
Adding an extra terabyte or so is also easy with an external drive. SSDs cost more per gigabyte than regular spinning hard drives, but SSDs boot up and wake from sleep so much faster than regular drives that we highly recommend them as boot drives. Unfortunately, some AIO PCs are hard or impossible to upgrade yourself, so make sure you get what storage you need at the start.
Because an all-in-one is, at its heart, a computer, it should have all the ports you expect to need during your day-to-day activities, particularly USB ports (in easy-to-access places, if at all possible). You may also want a dedicated Ethernet jack, though all-in-ones today all come with Wi-Fi support built-in, so you can easily hook up the system to the wireless network you already have in your home or office.
Also handy is an HDMI input port, which allows you to use the AIO as a discrete display for a separate PC, game console, or video source. This gives an AIO with a sharp display some potential usefulness years down the road as a stand-alone monitor when the PC portion inside becomes obsolete.
On the most basic level, one of the main reasons for choosing an AIO is that you don't need to buy separate parts in addition to your computer tower, like a monitor and speakers. All-in-one PCs represent exactly what the name implies: a complete desktop computer in one package, delivering a plug-and-play experience. Your screen and components are all tied up in one device, like a laptop, which takes up less of your desk or floor space than a desktop tower and monitor combination.
Even if you find a laptop you like with a roomy 16- or 18-inch screen, you'll need a strong back to carry it anywhere; 6 pounds and up, plus an AC adapter, is typical for machines like these. We suspect you won't travel with a true desktop-replacement machine like that all that much, and that could make even a small-screen AIO a viable stay-at-home alternative. And because AIO desktops are plugged in, you won't ever run out of battery power.
Because AIOs tend to use more powerful processors than many laptops do, all-in-one PCs will execute CPU-intensive tasks more rapidly, on the whole. Some 3D games will run better, too, thanks to the discrete graphics chips in some A-grade AIO PCs. To find AIOs with discrete chips, look for one of the very few (Microsoft's Surface Studio line is the rare example) graphics solutions dubbed GeForce RTX, as opposed to Intel Iris Xe, UHD, or HD Graphics, or AMD Radeon (no "RX") integrated graphics.
Other advantages? You can share the PC among family members, and use it to store centrally accessible photos, music, and videos. And a large, widescreen AIO PC makes for a fine videoconferencing system. Rather than having the family crowd around your iPad or a little laptop screen, seat them in front of a 27- or 34-inch AIO desktop so you're not subconsciously squeezing together to "fit on the screen." Plus, a large AIO screen is ideal for watching a movie from 5 or 6 feet away, so a couple in, say, a studio apartment could use a big-screen AIO as a TV in front of a small sofa or loveseat. Or, if you place the system in a central location, such as your kitchen counter, you can monitor your children when they're online.
But these PCs aren't just suitable for play. A few years back, Apple brought the AIO further into workstation territory with the iMac Pro. The starting price for this monster machine at launch was high at $5,000, but it packed a jaw-dropping amount of muscle: It had a 27-inch 5K screen and was configurable with up to an 18-core processor, 128GB of memory, and 4TB of solid-state storage. (Note that it is still for sale at this writing from non-Apple sources, usually used or as a refurbished model, but as of March 2021, Apple discontinued it.)
This kind of muscle is usually found only in elite-grade tower PCs, but the best AIOs can rival a high-end desktop. Apple's homebrewed M-series chips in the latest iMacs mentioned earlier are pretty fast. While many Windows AIOs trend toward the budget side, you'll find some models with potent processing options, like the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i Gen 8.
Of course, all-in-one designs come with some considerable limitations. If something goes wrong with the display, it's not as easy as swapping out the monitor, as you might with a standard PC tower setup. The screen is part of the package; the same goes for any component here. This is much closer to the laptop experience: When one part goes, it usually makes the system less usable overall. You're much more likely to buy an entirely new laptop or AIO when a part (or multiple parts) stops working well.
Sticking with the laptop comparison: While AIOs have bigger screens, you're giving up a lot of portability versus a laptop. AIOs are more portable than tower PCs, but you're unlikely to move your AIO once it's in place, apart from purpose-made models like the unique (and aptly named) HP Envy Move, shown below.
Compared with standard desktops, PC towers tend to have a higher power ceiling than AIOs. Most all-in-ones employ higher-end laptop processors, given their slimmer design and limited cooling, so traditional desktops contain more power potential. High-end towers are a much better fit for intensive work, like CAD/CAM or scientific data processing, and this is doubly true on the graphics front. AIOs lack desktop-equivalent graphics cards because of size and thermal concerns; the very few that have discrete graphics at all opt for laptop-level mobile graphics chips. PC gamers will get far more value and satisfaction from a stand-alone tower (where they can swap out a graphics card) than from a fixed-config AIO PC with much weaker integrated graphics.
Crucially, all-in-one PCs lack the expandability of most towers, which is again related to their slimmer, more space-limited designs. This brings us to the next point.
Generally speaking, this is a highly restrictive aspect of owning an AIO compared with a traditional tower desktop. AIOs have much more in common with laptops; both may let you upgrade the memory or storage, at best. For some users, that's enough, but it's still not all that common for these mostly sealed designs. Like with laptops, memory or the SSD may be directly integrated or soldered onto the motherboard, meaning you're stuck with what you have. And CPU and graphics upgrades are a nonstarter.
End-user upgrades are just not a priority with AIO designs. Even if an AIO chassis does open up easily and its components are not soldered down, it's more like upgrading a laptop. An AIO may use mobile SO-DIMM RAM (possible to acquire, but not the same size as desktop RAM), and M.2 SSDs may be size-limited versus the full-size slots on most desktop motherboards.
With a traditional desktop tower, installing a graphics card into a system you originally purchased without one is at least an option (provided it has the space, the slot, and an adequate power supply). You'll never fit one in an AIO's interior, however. If substantial future upgrades are a priority or even a concern, an AIO is not the right pick. Get a tower-style desktop.
As mentioned above, AIOs function on more of a laptop lifecycle, since it's one complete package rather than discrete parts. Regardless, at minimum, you should still get several years of use out of your machine. As far as speed and performance do, modern processors are snappy as a baseline, so you should be set for the near future and should expect to get a minimum of three years out of your machine.
For reasons outlined, though, it's often harder to fix when something goes wrong with an AIO's hardware than with a tower. (If your AIO display goes bad, it's not as easy as buying a new monitor, so hopefully, it's still under warranty if this happens.) With AIOs focused on business users, you'll find more support and longer warranties, like the three-year coverage for the HP EliteOne 870 G9. One- or two-year warranties are more common otherwise.
If you're lucky and you don't suffer component malfunction or damage, it comes back to speed and deprecation. If you're a power user, you may see sluggish performance after a few years, and if you hold on to an AIO for a truly long time -- approaching a decade -- the processor may no longer receive security patches, or Microsoft may drop support for the aging Windows version the PC shipped with.
The next time you're online and thinking that you need a bigger screen than your current laptop or tablet, look at an all-in-one desktop. You may be surprised how much screen and power they deliver for the money versus a like-priced laptop. If you're not sold on an AIO, be sure to check out our top desktop picks overall, as well as our favorite desktops for work and PC gaming.