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The Acer Aspire 5600U is an elegant all-in-one PC. Its edge-to-edge glass frame extends all the way down its black, glossy bezel to form its clear base. It has a neat stand that flips out the back to support it.
Able to move up to 80 degrees behind the main unit, the stand means that you can prop up the screen to your desired angle with ease. Using a fold-out stand means that the Acer Aspire A5600 U takes up slightly more space on your desk than an all-in-one with a more traditional stand.
However, the benefit is that you can easily adjust the angle of the screen – all it takes is a gentle push and pull at the top of the screen to adjust it to your desired working angle. The stand does all the hard work for you and retracts automatically when you pull it up so you don’t have to reach round the back to make sure it doesn’t fall.
Its responsive 23in touchscreen is gorgeous to look at as well. With impressive viewing angles, the screen’s clear to see from pretty much any position, bar the most extreme of angles. Our solid-colour image tests showed that they were bright, vibrant and uniform across the screen at all angles. The only real flaw we noticed was a red tinge present in the greys and whites, particularly when viewed from above.
There’s no way to alter the screen’s individual colour values due to a lack of monitor controls, although you can make some adjustments using the Nvidia Control Panel in Windows. The monitor’s contrast levels were also noticeably worse when viewed from a standing position, but we only noticed this on particularly dark images.
The screen is only half the story in an all-in-one PC and, while the A5600 U’s design certainly makes it look like a high-end machines, the hardware underneath is a little underpowered compared to the competition at this price.
It has a 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-3230M processor paired with 6GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk. This let the PC score a fairly respectable 50 overall in our multimedia benchmarks, but as the i5-3230M is a mobile CPU, other all-in-ones with desktop processors scored higher.
Dedicated graphics are always good to see. The Aspire A5600 U 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 630M graphics chip l failed both our Crysis 2 and Dirt Showdown tests at Ultra Quality settings at a resolution of 1,920×1,080, but getting playable frame rates wasn’t hard. Switching detail settings down to High Quality at 1,920×1,080 got us 23.5fps in Dirt Showdown, while running our laptop test (1,280×720) we managed 37.2fps. Provided you don’t want the highest detail settings, then, the Aspire A5600 U will cope with all of your games.
The 5600U also has a good range of ports, but most of these are located underneath a plastic lip at the back. This makes them rather fiddly to plug in, but here you’ll find an HDMI input, so you can connect an external device, such as games console, and an HDMI output for connecting a second monitor. There’s a TV input, too, and pre-installed AverMedia TV software, so you can use the all-in-one as a Freeview TV and PVR.
Thankfully, the two USB 3 ports, multi-format card reader, DVD drive and headphone and microphone jacks on are all located on the sides and are much easier to access.
While the A5600 U clearly wants to be your one-stop-shop for all things entertainment, its integrated speakers just aren’t up to the task. These sounded very tinny while listening to music, with hardly any discernible bass. They’re better than your average laptop speakers, but they’re a long way off other all-in-one PC sound systems.
We weren’t big fans of the bundled in keyboard and mouse either. They use the same clear glass design from the main PC, but they look decidedly less smart and pick up fingerprints easily. This wasn’t helped by the keyboard’s black, glossy finish either, and it’s noisy and bouncy plastic keys cheapened its overall look. The mouse also became quite grubby, but at least it was the right size for our hands.
The Acer Aspire A5600 U is a beautifully designed all-in-one PC, but at its current price it can’t compete with its more powerful competition. It might not be as attractive, but the Asus ET2220IUTI is faster, has better speakers and is cheaper, too.
