Samsung DP-U200 All-in-one PC review

The 20in Samsung DP-U200 is the first all-in-one we’ve seen from the company. We were impressed the second we saw it, and its stylish case will look good anywhere you put it. The design is cutting-edge, with a glossy black bezel encased in a white shell. The stand is made of a rectangular metal loop, with a pivot in the middle so that the top loop acts as a handle.

The keyboard shares the same two-tone design as the case, and there’s a glossy black mouse. The latter is too light for our liking, but has a comfortable shape. The keyboard is one of the best we’ve seen with an all-in-one PC: it has a light action, but there’s plenty of feedback for touch-typists. The keys have a stepped design that we found uncomfortable, but the layout is standard, and there’s even a numberpad.

There’s a proper processor in this PC, with a dual-core 2.2GHz Pentium T4400 processor. With 4GB of RAM, the DP-U200 managed an overall score of 61 in our benchmarks. It’s not bad and shows that this computer can cope with most tasks, but we’ve seen cheaper all-on-one computers that are faster. It’s also a little annoying that only 32-bit Windows is installed, so only around 3.5GB of RAM is used.

Dedicated graphics powered by an Nvidia GeForce G310M add a bit of 3D power to the mix. The overall score of 16.4fps in Call of Duty 4 show that the latest first-person shooters are out, but they’ll cope with strategy or role-playing games. They can also decode HD video, which is well suited to the 1,600×900 widescreen display.

There’s a glossy finish on the screen that added vibrancy to colours but reflected any nearby light sources, so the DP-U200 isn’t suited to office environments. The backlight is even but dull, and although colours look deep, they lack punch. A slight green cast made pictures a bit darker than they should have been, and yellows were particularly dulled. The screen’s 1,600×900 resolution gives you plenty of room to work on. Needless to say, the internal speakers are too quiet and lack bass.

The screen’s a touchscreen model, so supports multi-touch gestures in Windows 7, such as pinching to zoom. We’re not massive fans of touchscreens on desktop computers, and you may never use it. If you want to use a second display or an external monitor, there’s a DVI output.

As the keyboard and mouse each take up a USB port, there are four spare USB ports for expansion. A small panel on the right side opens to reveal one USB and one USB/eSATA combination port, as well as headphone and microphone sockets and an SD card reader. With so few ports available, this side panel is bound to be in constant use, so the need for a flimsy plastic cover isn’t obvious.

Although it looks incredibly stylish, we think the DP-U200 is a little expensive. This is partially because it will initially be sold exclusively through PC World, so prices should fall once it’s more widely available. That said, even if it were £100 cheaper, it still wouldn’t be as good value as some alternatives.