Asus ET2701INTI review

It has a wide range of ports, but it’s a bit annoying that they’re concealed on the left hand side by an ugly plastic lid. We would have much preferred to have them in plain sight rather than hidden behind a cheap bit of plastic, as it detracts from its overall design.

Under the lid, you’ll find two USB3 ports, a single USB2/eSATA combo port, a three-in-one card reader, separate headphone, microphone, and 3.5mm audio line out jacks, as well as the 2.5mm subwoofer line out.

Around the back it’s a bit simpler, with two USB2 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and VGA and HDMI inputs for connecting external devices, such as a games console, and using the all-in-one as a monitor. There’s also a TV co-axial input, which you can use with the built-in TV card and ArcSoft TV software to turn the all-in-one in to a Freeview TV and PVR.

It’s still a shame that Windows Media Center doesn’t ship with Windows 8 as standard, as its excellent interface and EPG is the best we’ve seen for managing TV on a computer. If you want Media Center you’ll have to shell out £50 for the privilege.

The Asus ET2701INTI’s bundled wireless mouse and keyboard aren’t too bad. We found the mouse was a little too small to be completely comfortable, but the Chiclet-style keyboard was very responsive and gave plenty of tactile feedback.

The Asus ET2701INTI is an excellent all-in-one PC, with a very powerful processor and the ability to cope with the latest games. It’s also a great size for a desktop replacement, but the excellent Dell XPS One 27 Dell XPS One 27 is just as fast and has a higher resolution screen. It’s more expensive, but we think it’s worth the extra.