Looking for an all-in-one desktop PC to put in your kitchen that can display your family calendar, let you look up casserole recipes, and charge your phone? The Acer Aspire S24 ($899.99) has a few tricks up its sleeve that will let you do all of those things in ways that weren't possible a few years ago.
The cutting-edge tech in this stylish, downright affordable PC makes it a great conversation piece for houseguests if you're into showing off, but woefully flimsy peripherals and a sluggish hard drive mean it's ultimately not a practical computer for everyday use.
A Gorgeous Display
With an Intel Core i5-8250U that mostly shows up in ultraportable laptops and an integrated graphics processor, the Aspire S24 ( at Amazon) isn't designed to be a computing powerhouse, although its 12GB of RAM is nothing to sniff at.
Instead, the main attraction is a 23.8-inch full HD (1,920-by-1,080) display.
It's gorgeous, with an incredibly thin border (known as a bezel) on the top and sides of the screen that is almost too small to see when you're staring at the PC from across the room.
The bottom border is slightly wider than the sides and top, with a gold accent that matches the stand that attaches the display to the Aspire S24's base.
The thinness of the bezel itself isn't unique; other more capable and more expensive all-in-ones like the HP EliteOne 1000 and the Dell Inspiron 27 7000 ( at Dell) have barely there bezels too.
What sets the Aspire S24 apart, though, is that the entire display is thin, not just the borders.
At 0.23 inches, it's so slim that it vaguely resembles a gigantic laptop, as if there should be a second half of a clamshell case containing a keyboard and touchpad below.
There isn't, of course, but the overall effect is arresting, and would certainly be at home in the most futuristic of kitchens or home offices.
A hinge lets you rotate the screen from an angle slightly greater than perpendicular to your desk to about 45 degrees.
It's a decent range of motion, offering those with average height the perfect vantage point when the Aspire S24 is placed on a kitchen counter or other surface that's above desk height.
You can't rotate the display from side to side, however.
The quality of the screen itself is merely average.
A full HD resolution is on the lower end of what I consider acceptable for a screen this large, although it's certainly the norm for competing budget all-in-ones like the Asus Zen AiO.
It's too bad that Acer doesn't offer a 4K option, however, since the incremental pixels would make the display look just as good as the bezel that surrounds it.
At least the matte finish, bright backlight, and in-plane switching (IPS) technology are very good at offering wide viewing angles and reducing glare from ambient light.
A more glaring omission than 4K for many prospective owners is the lack of a touch screen option.
An all-in-one PC destined for a public area of your house is one of the clearest use cases for the Windows 10 touch interface I can think of, since you might be using it while standing up to quickly check the calendar or pause music playback.
On the other hand, if you plan to install the Aspire S24 in a den or home office, the lack of a touch screen won't be as much of a bother.
Built-In Qi Wireless Charging
Since the display is so thin, there's only room for a tiny webcam centered above the screen that takes grainy videos and photos.
All of the Aspire S24's other features are located in the base, which is a rather stodgy wedge of black plastic compared with the avant-garde display.
The most notable feature is a Qi wireless charging pad in the rear left corner, which delivers power to charge compatible mobile devices like the Apple iPhone X ($999.00 at Verizon) and the Samsung Galaxy S8.
On the base's left edge, you'll find two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a full-size SD card reader, a USB-C port that lacks Thunderbolt support, and a gold power button.
Around back, there is a third USB 3.1 port, an HDMI output, an Ethernet jack as an alternative to the built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and an HDMI input in case you want to display video signal from another device.
A button on the right edge switches the input source between an external device and the PC; next to it is an audio port, a Kensington-style locking slot, and a USB 2.0 port.
That USB 2.0 port is a good place to plug in the receiver dongle for a wireless keyboard and mouse.
You could use the ones that come with the Aspire S24, but their quality leaves a lot to be desired.
The mouse is tiny, and the keys on the keyboard have an extremely short travel distance—shorter than many laptop keys I've tested—which makes them uncomfortable for long typing sessions.
There's also noticeable flex when you strike keys in the lower part of the board, especially the spacebar.
Finally, the shiny black plastic and rounded edges share no design attributes with the matte black and gold of the all-in-one itself.
Do yourself a favor and buy a better keyboard and mouse.
Two speaker grilles are located on the front edge of the all-in-one's base, and they produce sound quality that you'd expect from a decent ultraportable laptop.
There is a subwoofer, too, but it does little more than muddy the sound.
If you're looking to use the Aspire S24 as a jukebox, you'll need to connect it to external speakers for an enjoyable experience.
In addition to using the audio-out port, you can also use Bluetooth 4.1 to do so.
Acer offers a standard one-year limited warranty for the Aspire S24.
Don't Trust the Numbers
Thanks to its eighth-generation Intel Core i5-8250U processor, the Acer Aspire S24 does very well on our performance charts, at least for the types of common activities that you'll likely perform with this system.
It achieved a score of 3,221 on the all-encompassing PCMark 8 benchmark, which simulates web browsing, videoconferencing, word processing, and many other everyday computing tasks.
Any score above 3,000 on this test is excellent, signifying that the PC can perform these tasks with no noticeable lag.
The Aspire S24's PCMark score is better than all of its competitors save for the Aspire Z3 , and its scores on the Handbrake, Cinebench, and Photoshop tests are in the middle of the pack but still good.
My experience using the Aspire S24 was very different than these results suggest, however.
I found startup times to be rather long, usually more than a minute.
Navigating between web pages and switching apps was rather sluggish, and Windows interface animations occasionally froze, especially when opening new app windows or resizing them.
One of the culprits for these problems is the 1TB hard disk drive (HDD), which is much slower than the SSDs or hybrid drives that are included with midrange desktops and laptops.
While an SSD has little effect on the time it takes to complete processor-intensive tasks, it vastly improves user experience details like switching apps, resizing windows, and restarting the PC.
Since the 1TB HDD is your only option on the Aspire S24, the bottom line is that you won't notice any problems when you're editing a document or watching a video, but opening up that document or video could take longer than you might expect from a modern PC.
The Aspire S24's graphics performance is about what you'd expect from a PC with an integrated graphics chip.
With frame rates below 30 frames per second (fps) on our gaming tests, you won't be able to play graphics-intensive games at ultra quality settings, but it's a fine platform for kids to play web browser-based games.
The discrete graphics chip in the Aspire Z3 helped it perform slightly better on our Heaven and Valley gaming simulations, while the AMD Radeon Pro 560 in the Apple iMac ( at Amazon) is the clear winner here.
See How We Test Desktops
Standout Looks
The Acer Aspire S24's one standout feature is its gorgeous display.
If you need a good-looking all-in-one on a budget, it's worth a close look.
If your desktop needs are more flexible, however, there are better options.
For instance, if the Aspire S24's looks win you over and you've got plenty of space under the kitchen counter and a slightly thicker wallet, you could buy a small form factor or micro desktop and connect it to the nearly identical-looking Acer H277HU monitor.
That way, you have much greater freedom in choosing the PC components you want, as well as the choice to opt for a 4K resolution.
On the other hand, if your budget is flexible but you must have an all-in-one, you can spend a few hundred dollars more on the Editors' Choice HP EliteOne 1000 or the Apple iMac and get better performance from PCs that are also very easy on the eyes, even if their bezels aren't as thin as the Acer's.
Pros
The Bottom Line
The Acer Aspire S 24's breathtakingly slim display makes it a very attractive all-in-one desktop, but sluggish performance, the lack of touch screen, and flimsy peripherals negatively affect usability.
