If you're planning on using the touch screen at least 50% of the time, look for 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. (Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Monitors vary wildly in price, with the top end ‘8K’ models priced highly due to their super-detailed screens. But, you should be able to find a reasonably priced model if you know what you’re looking for. How to buy a monitor for your desktop PC Under the hood is the innovative 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U Quad-Core processor delivering next level performance with up to 3.4 GHz with Intel's Turbo Boost Technology with 6 MB cache ideal for running office applications such as Microsoft Word or multimedia applications. How far away you sit from the monitor is also key, as the closer you are, the more likely you’ll be to spot lower resolution. It’s also important to remember that if you choose a higher resolution, the objects on the screen (such as program icons) will become smaller. You can delve into the PC settings to increase their default sizes, however.

AIO Basics, Part One: The Core Components

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 you need at the start.

Other advantages? You can share the PC among the members of a family, 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. It is ideal for running office applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel or multimedia tasks such as watching videos or editing photos. For the uninitiated, all-in-one computers (or AIOs) are essentially desktop monitors with a whole PC crammed in behind the display - but that doesn't mean they should be written off as underpowered compared to full-size desktop towers. Plenty of these have excellent specs, allowing them to handle tasks like gaming, graphic design, and video editing. The M1 iMac occupying our top spot, for example, uses Apple's excellent M1 chip to deliver impressive performance across a wide range of workloads. Regardless, towers are still better than all-in-one PCs when you need to do intensive work like CAD/CAM or scientific data processing, and most of them are expandable in ways far beyond even the most upgrade-generous AIO on the market. PC gamers, especially, will get much more value out of a stand-alone tower in which they can swap out a graphics card than in a fixed-config AIO PC. If an all-in-one has discrete graphics, we run it through many of the same benchmarks we use for gaming PCs. That includes 3DMark Fire Strike, as well as the built-in benchmark tools of games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Hitman and Grand Theft Auto V. If an all-in-one is made to support virtual reality, we'll also run the SteamVR Performance Test.

You’ll have plenty of connectivity options with on board 10/100/1000 Mbit LAN and Intel WLAN AC9462 802.11ac allowing speedy connectivity to the internet over 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands. The in-built Bluetooth 5.1 allows you to connect wireless mice, headsets and more. When it comes to all-in-one computers, they just don’t come more powerful than this. The Apple iMac Pro reclaims the Pro title with way more processing and graphics power than any consumer will ever need, making it the perfect addition to the professional video studio, the audio engineering booth or the architect’s office. When shopping for a new desktop like one of the best all-in-one computers listed above, it helps to have a clear idea of what your intended uses are for the new system. If you're after a basic machine for web browsing, there are plenty of budget systems that will fit the bill, but more demanding uses like editing photo and video or even creating new artistic content will demand a more powerful system.