All-in-One Computers

When choosing a computer, many people feel torn between sleek, expensive laptops or powerful desktops that need extra space. In reality, all-in-one computers offer a happy medium: compact, visually pleasing packages that still boast the power and convenient screen sizes of desktops. Also, an all-in-one PC will generally cost less than a laptop with comparable specifications. If portability is still essential to you, you might consider an all-in-one desktop with a touch screen that's designed to also function as a very large tablet.

If this sort of go-anywhere versatility sounds perfect to you, you'll want a Windows model, such as an HP all-in-one computer. If touch screens aren't important to you, Mac OS is widely considered to be one of the most user-friendly and intuitive operating systems. And it syncs up seamlessly with iPhones and iPads. More and more, however, people are choosing an alternative to the two main traditional operating systems. Chrome OS, featured exclusively on all-in-one computers known as Chromeboxes, runs fast, lightweight versions of many applications, while storing files in the cloud for easy access from any device.

If you'll be storing a lot of files on your all-in-one desktop, you'll want to carefully consider how big you’ll need the hard drive to be. If you mostly surf the Web and use small-sized files like documents and spreadsheets, you may not need much space. People who save lots of music and movies or who do a good deal of photo and video editing, however, will want to look at all-in-one computers with a larger hard drive capacity.

As for the type of hard drives available, you have a choice between traditional disk drives and solid state drives for your all-in-one desktop. Solid state drives provide fast performance and quick access to stored files. Disk-based drives still give good performance and are less expensive than solid-state drives.