Acer has released a brand-new and very thin all-in-one PC, the Acer Aspire S24. Windows all-in-ones haven’t traditionally been particularly popular, but Acer’s hoping that a stylish design and specs that can beat out the entry-level iMac can help with that.
For $899, you get a PC with a 23.8-inch 1080p screen, Kaby Lake Intel Core i5, 12GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and integrated Intel graphics. Compare that to Apple’s cheapest iMac, which starts at $1,099, has a smaller screen, and less RAM, and you can see where Acer is going with this.
There are big differences in the design, of course. Acer put all the guts of the PC in the base, which allowed it to (cheaply) shrink the bezels and thickness to achieve a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio and a quarter-inch screen thickness. Putting the guts in the base also made it easy to add a Qi wireless charger there for your smartphone, which is something I wish more monitors and all-in-one PCs did.
Of course, Apple’s design and build quality is renowned throughout the industry, while Acer is known for making cheaper machines with the emphasis on price and performance. The budget iMac is also not a flagship product for Apple, and there’s no way that this Acer all-in-one competes with the $3,000 Retina iMac.
