Anybody seen the new Asus AIOs?

[MacRazySwe]

As much as I love my Apple-products, especially my iMac, I have to admit that the new Asus All-In-Ones do look pretty god damn great! Yes, the iMac is still miles better looking, but honestly - the Asus has one of my most wished for features in an iMac - HDMI input. Secondly, it has a built-in TV tuner. How cool is that? And for those of you who like smudgy fingerprints all over the screen, it does have a touchscreen display.

I remember buying my iMac with the Kanex XD in mind, for being able to use it as a display for my XBOX. Seeing as Kanex never developed a Thunderbolt-compatible Kanex XD, that never happened. It makes me seriously annoyed that Apple won't offer the same functionality as the Asus AIO in their iMacs. I mean, even the Twentieth Anniversary Mac offered a TV-tuner, and it was not the first to do so either.

If only Apple had an iMac with HDMI input... I wouldn't even be looking at PC's... Not that I'd buy one anyway, but the Asus does make me a bit jelly...

What do you guys think of the Asus? ...I know, in the end of the day it's still a PC which uses Windows. That said, do you think Apple will ever offer a true "All-in-one experience"?

 

[IA64]

23 inches ? No thanks.

 

[BenTrovato]

It's pretty cool... obviously nowhere near as nice as an iMac.

 

[kaellar]

740m GPU? ULV CPUs?? Thousand times no!

 

[iSayuSay]

Decent looking AIO, but bad photoshoot. First time I see it, one thing comes to mind: Does the screen shattered? What's with sharp crystal shapes on the wallpaper?

Oh and it's only 23", uses Intel graphic and bad mouse/keyboard. So I'd pass. King of all in one is iMac and iMac alone. It's been like this for years despite pathetic efforts of PC OEMs. Don't know why they just can't do it right.

 

[xraydoc]

It's simple to add a USB-TV dongle. Boom. TV on your iMac.

The HDMI input on the ASUS - what's it for? I doubt video capture. Using the AIO as a display? The iMac will basically do the same (Target Display Mode) for other Macs. Use it for an X-Box? I guess, but Apple would prefer you buy games for the Mac anyway, so why enable use as an X-Box display. And I certainly would rather play games on a large TV, sitting on my couch, then at my desk. Not saying I represent everyone's needs, but I guess I don't see a need. Besides, the iMac's display resolution - at least for the 27" - can't be carried over standard HDMI anyway, so an X-Box or BluRay player's output would have to be scaled up, creating artifacts and potentially making it look bad, not to mention the cost of engineering a scaler in to the display subsystem.

So other than behaving like an HDMI display, what else does this have that the iMac doesn't?

 

[andycho7]

True below average laptop spec'd all in one desktop. I was thinking it'd be at least a decent laptop class CPU, but an utter disappointment with the ULV processors. Come on, at least iMac comes with desktop class CPU. I mean, base Mac Mini's CPU is better than this and it's outdated last-gen Ivy Bridge.

Plus what's up with the GT 740M? I mean it's not the worst card out there, but I think they could've put something little better. At least a GT 750M would've been a better choice in my opinion.

Well at least props for the HDMI ports and "almost" more USB ports. What I mean by "almost" is their half assed USB 3.0 ports. I personally prefer 4 USB3.0 ports over 3 3.0 ports and 2 2.0 ports.

However, I cannot find any pricing information about this computer. Does anyone know?

 

[Siderz]

It's plastic

 

[xraydoc]

Just looked up the specs. Standard processor is an ultraslow voltage Core i3. No way... ever! My iPhone is faster than that.

The top processor is a 1.8GHz dual-core ULV i7. That's the same processor thats in my 11" MacBook Air. For a desktop?? No thanks.

My iMac may cost more, but has a better GPU than this Asus and its CPU is FASTER than the base-model 2013 Mac Pro.

 

[IA64]

Also the TV tuner is not a great catch.


I have iMac connected to Elgato EyeTV hybrid ( DVB-C/T and Analog Antenna )

Very good device although quite expensive.