At the opposite end of the scale to Apple’s huge and expensive 27in iMac comes MSI’s small and low-cost Adora20 2BT all-in-one PC. At only £299, this AIO PC costs £500 less than many of its rivals, and expectations should be adjusted accordingly. Starting with the specification, we find a 19.5in non-touch display featuring a low-cost TN display panel and a 1600 by 900 resolution, which falls below the full HD standard of 1920 by 1080 pixels. This is a far cry from the IPS panels of 23in and upward found in more expensive all-in-one PCs, and the MSI Adora20 2BT suffers from poor viewing angles and lower-quality colour, although brightness and contrast are good. It also features a matt anti-glare coating which makes it fine for a bit of word processing, but not so good for editing photos or watching movies, although a DVD re-writer is included in the price. The MSI Adora20’s build quality feels rather unimpressive compared to the more expensive machines, but this is to be expected and the low price must always be taken into account. Finished in white throughout, we suspect it won’t be too long before this all-in-one PC starts to look rather grubby. Thankfully, a black version is also available which is probably the more practical option. The display tilts back quite far, but this is of minimal use on a PC which doesn’t support touch input. It also lacks an HDMI input, although the quality and resolution aren’t really high enough to warrant its use as an external display. A pair of small stereo speakers is integrated into the stand – the sound quality isn’t very good, but is quite acceptable in the context of the low asking price. The Adora20 2BT also feels sluggish to use. It features a 2GHz-2.4GHz quad-core processor, but don’t let those numbers fool you: this low power Celeron J1900 CPU could never be described as fast. The chip features integrated graphics and these are also slow – so don’t think about playing any graphically intensive games on this all-in-one PC. In fact, we would advise against running anything at all intensive on the MSI. Stick to basic web browsing, emailing and other similar tasks and this AIO PC will serve you well. Demanding anything more of it is likely to lead to frustration.
