Acer Aspire 5600U review - hands on

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Posted on 30 Oct 2012 at 16:49, by Tom Morgan

We've seen an upsurge of new all-in-one PC models now that Windows 8 has launched, and Acer is no different - its Aspire 5600U was designed around the multi-touch support built into Windows 8, so it should come as no surprise that it has a touchscreen display.

The hinged, easel-style design uses a mixture of glass, metal and plastic and is just 33mm at its thickest point.That might not be as thin as Apple's newly refreshed iMac, but the tilting hinge lets you push the entire system down to a 30 degree angle for more comfortable touch controls - ideal for artists or designers that don't have a graphics tablet to hand.

The 23in display has a Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, as well as an IPS panel that has superb viewing angles no matter how far you have it tilted - the hinge it sits on only needs the pressure from a single finger to the top centre of the screen bezel to tilt, so you don't feel like you're forcing it flat, but still manages to lock firmly in place at any angle.

With a 1TB hard disk for storage, 8GB of RAM and performance courtesy of an Intel Core i5-3210M CPU running at 2.5GHz, the Aspire 5600U should be fast enough for all your everyday tasks, although we haven't had confirmation which SKUs will be available in the UK on launch. We didn't spot dedicated graphics, with the display model using Intel's HD 4000 integrated GPU, but we can't rule out the possibility until Acer decides which models will be coming to the UK.

We do know it has an internal Blu-ray optical drive, along with two USB3 ports, 3.5mm audio in and output jacks and an SD card reader on the side, as well as a further 3 USB ports on the back, along with HDMI in and outputs, SPDIF optical and Ethernet. There's also integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless connectivity.

Acer wasn't ready to talk to us about pricing or availability in the UK, so we'll have to wait a little closer to launch to know what an Aspire 5600U will cost, but with similar all in one PCs coming from other manufacturers, it's tough to say if Acer has done enough to ensure its success. We'll know later this year.