Vizio’s 27-inch CA27-A1 all-in-one: First desktop is a strong start - maxwellancons38

At a Glint

Skilled's Rating

Pros

Quadruplet USB 3.0 ports
Great performance for the price

Cons

Expansion ports are hard to compass
No optical drive

Our Finding of fact

The Vizio CA27-A1 offers some goody-goody media capabilities at a great price, giving it a strong initiation to the desktop grocery.

Vizio is no stranger to our lab, but its first screen background PC entry, the Vizio CA27-A1 all-in-one, shines bright.

Priced at $1250 (as of August 24, 2012), the Vizio CA27-A1 comes stocked with an Intel CORE i5-3210M processor that runs at a standard 2.5GHz just ramps up to 3.1GHz when using Intel's Turbo Frequency technology. This is coupled with 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM to support a speedy, respondent machine.

The riddle is a gorgeous 27-inch display with a maximum resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. It has a slight tilt to pay off a improved showing angle and to alleviate whatsoever blaze that power hitch the mirrorlike screen. But it's not a touchscreen, which feels like a bit of an oversight with Windows 8 so last to release. While a touch screen ISN't necessary, it could equal useful with Microsoft's forthcoming operating system.

Performance

The system scored 122 on our strenuous WorldBench 7 benchmark suite, making it 22 percentage faster than our service line scheme, a fully equipped tower. The CA27-A1 manages to be faster, sleeker, and more functional than that baseline, a nasty combination of goals to achieve in any PC.

One goal for most all-in-one screen background PCs is to cost as thin as possible. This often means sacrifing roughly of the bulkier, more powerful components. Vizio managed to credit crunch in a discrete GPU, albeit a mobile united: Nvidia's GeForce GT 640M LE graphics card with 1GB of memory. Spell the CA27-A1's specs will let it run some to a lesser extent straining games well, information technology struggled a bit on our graphics/games test.

We ran DiRT 3 and Crysis 2 at the highest graphics setting at a maximum resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The organization managed 35.7 frames per second on DiRT 3 and 16 fps happening Crysis 2. Unfortunately this won't wreak an enjoyable gaming live. The CA27 does manage to cross the desirable 60-fps mark when Scandal 3 is changed to low graphics settings (63.7 Federal Protective Service) or the resolution is lowered to 1024 by 768 pixels (66.2 fps). Crysis 2 doesn't rather cross that threshold: When the graphics are set to low and the firmness to 1024 by 768 pixels, it reaches 55.9 FPS. Of course, you can seduce it a bit prettier, but acceptable performance is not guaranteed.

Ports and accessories

The ports are all located along the ground of the unit, mostly in the rump, which can be a pain to progress to regularly. Also, a lip on the base extends some an edge in, which unfortunately hides the ports. While it gives the system a clean, sleek flavour, it makes the ports impossible to find without some serious maneuvering. The ports include one for eSATA, two for HDMI for seven-fold devices (so much as a video-game solace and a cable box), and four for USB 3.0. I was proud that Vizio went straight to glutted-on USB 3.0, leaving out the older, slower USB 2.0 textbook wholly.

The CA27-A1 offers completely the connectivity an wholly-in-one needs, including 802.11n wireless, a gigabit ethernet port, and Bluetooth for other radio accessories.

And that brings us to the accessories, where the accompany's decisions are a trifle of a heterogenous bag. Its wireless keyboard, originall, doesn't rattling impress. It's thin and light, but the keys lack texture and are unmodulated. And instead of a sneak away, Vizio offers a enormous wireless touchpad. It works healed if you are computing from the couch where you'd get no thin surfaces for that accessory, just some users whitethorn miss the mouse. However, the touchpad will arrive at the system more than Windows 8-friendly. Vizio too includes a 2.1 surround-sound subwoofer to leave some knock-down audio frequency out of small speakers. A strawma-facing, 1.3-megapixel, 720p webcam and an integrated microphone are also present for those World Health Organization bank on video conferencing. Finally, you get a small remote to control media functionality. It's impressionable to fancy that this organization's chief goal is to be a digital media machine.

However, the CA27-A1 doesn't number with an optical drive. While playing games and installing software via CDs is rapidly becoming obsolete, when a computer strives to exist the final reply As a media device, the lack of a DVD operating theater Blu-ray drive seems modification. Information technology feels a little counterproductive to buy an external optical drive when one of the CA27-A1's goals is to assuage desk clutter.

Vizio did make some smart choices when pricing this organisation. At $1250, the CA27-A1 stays meet below similar products from major competitors without giving astir performance. The Asus ET2701 INKI, for instance, costs astir $50 more ($1299 every bit of 7/9/2012) and didn't do atomic number 3 advantageously on WorldBench 7, grading a 111. The two models have nearly selfsame specs, though the Asus does mutant a speedier Meat i7-3770S. Where the Vizio manages to beat the Asus is in kick-upward fourth dimension: The Asus took all over 20 seconds thirster to get along fully functional later booting. You hind end thank the 32GB solid-state drive in the CA27-A1 that is used for hardened-drive caching. Though the SSD doesn't progress to for any redundant storage place, it turns the slower 1TB, 5400-rpm drive into a FALSE SSD with Intel's Rapid Warehousing technology'a perfect mixture of damage efficiency and performance.

Overall, the CA27-A1 is a great entrance to the affordable wholly-in-incomparable securities industry. You perplex plenty of public presentation bang for your buck, though it isn't without shortcomings. Vizio lay out a good deal of thought into the system's performance, merely perhaps less in its media functionality. I would have liked to go out Vizio forego a feature or deuce to make way for a Blu-ray drive and still keep open the price competitive. The scheme is great for students on a budget operating room the family that needs a whole number media player in an supererogatory room, and since it is one of the lowest-priced much systems, the investment will be a reasonable one.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/460945/vizios_27_inch_ca27_a1_all_in_one_first_desktop_is_a_strong_start.html

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