Asus AIO V241E Review: The perfect Work From Home setup
In case you have been looking for a new PC, the Asus AIO V241E might look tempting. But should you really go out and buy one right now? Find out in this review.
Asus, the Taiwanese tech giant, has been launching a lot of new laptops lately to cater to the needs of a different audience. While the VivoBook series is for the people looking for a good laptop on a budget, the ZenBook series is geared more towards professional users. With the laptop portfolio being already crowded, Asus thought to offer an All-in-One (AiO) that can serve the students studying from home and even adults working from home.
For those who are unaware, an All-in-One PC basically comes with the laptop internals stuffed inside the monitor itself. It also comes bundled with a mouse and keyboard making a plug-and-play situation. While it is an easy to setup desktop PC solution, it also helps the users maintain a clean desk.
In case you have been looking for a new PC, this might sound tempting. But should you really go out and buy one right now? Find out in this review:
Asus AIO V241E Review: Design, Build and I/O
Asus has followed the design language of its VivoBook laptops here with the top and side borders being slim and the chin being on the thicker side. The thin borders help the AIO to achieve a modern look and a better screen-to-body ratio. The chin houses the Asus branding, the speaker grille as well as the camera.
While the design does look attractive and modern, placing the camera on the chin is not the wisest choice. With more people using the webcams for meetings and online classes, Asus should have thought this through. As for the camera quality, it is not the best in class but it will get the job done for most online meetings.
The Asus AIO PC sits on a metal monitor stand that feels quite sturdy. The stand has been factory fitted and cannot be removed without opening up the back panel of the PC. It would have been great if the company added support for a wall mount as that could have helped users achieve a cleaner look at their desk.
As for the input-output interface, Asus AIO V241E features four USB 3.1 Type-A ports, an HDMI-in and an HDMI-out port on the back. There is also an RJ-45 LAN port and a power input port. Apart from this, the AIO also gets a USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack, both of which are placed on the right bottom edge of the device. I do feel that the company should have added at least one USB Type-C port here. There is also a Mode button that lets users switch between HDMI mode and PC mode.
Asus AIO V241E Review: Display and Audio
Asus AIO V241E features a 23.8-inch FullHD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The LED-backlit display features an aspect ratio of 16:9 and sports a wide 178-degree viewing angle. The display is bright and vivid and I had no issues with the panel. I enjoyed watching movies on it and working on documents was also bliss. The brightness of the panel can be easily controlled using the Windows Brightness slider or the shortcuts on the included keyboard. It gets fairly bright for indoor usage.
As for the audio, the Asus AIO V241E features some of the best speakers fit inside a monitor or an All-in-One. The sound was enough to allow me to enjoy Netflix without needing to plug in my headphones. The speakers also had some bass, which made me enjoy my music as well.
Asus AIO V241E Review: Performance
Our review unit came with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor clocked at 2.40GHz with 4 cores and 8 threads. It gets 8GB of RAM and for storage, the PC came with a 256GB Samsung NVMe SSD and 1TB hard drive. With such hardware, the Asus AIO V241E was able to perform quite well.
During my usage, I always had Spotify, WhatsApp and Telegram open in the background. I also had 3-4 windows of Google Chrome open. Even with such usage, the PC did not show any signs of hiccups. However, using processor or RAM hungry programs might bring noticeable lag on board.
I even ran a quick Cinebench test and it gave me a score of 1357 points on single-core and 4071 points in multi-core performance benchmarks. This makes the Intel Core i5-1135G7 sit right above the Core i7-4850Hq but below the Core i7-1165G7 CPU.
While the Asus AIO V241E is not advertised as a gaming PC, I decided to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive anyways. With most of the graphics settings at medium, I was able to achieve an average frame rate of 72 fps. Considering the display is only a 60Hz one, the average 72 fps should be able to give you decent gameplay. However, it is worth noting that I also noticed frame drops after half an hour of gaming.
Asus AIO V241E Review: Keyboard and Mouse
As this is an All-in-One, Asus ships the AIO V241E with a wireless keyboard and mouse combo. Both of them connected to the PC using a single 2.4GHz USB receiver. The plastic used on the keyboard and mouse did not give much confidence. Besides that, they worked pretty well during my usage. The keyboard gave a good typing experience and the mouse was also comfortable to work with.
Asus AIO V241E Review: Verdict
Asus AIO V241E is a great setup for work from home scenarios. It checks a lot of the right boxes and comes in with an affordable price tag. It does have its fair share of flaws like limited upgrade potential, oddly placed webcam and more. But for regular home usage, the Asus AIO V241E would serve most of your purpose.