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BEST BUDGET DESKTOP
ACER ASPIRE TC-885-UA 92
$549 as tested EDITORS’ CHOICE Llllh
All many shoppers need is a low-cost, small-footprint family PC for the home. The Acer Aspire
TC-885-UA92 delivers that better than any of the other budget towers we’ve reviewed, with
no real shortcoming for the price. It’s compact, the design is restrained (but not entirely
boring), and it includes such extras as an optical drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB-C. It uses
integrated graphics, and the interior is limited, but those are understandable secondary
concerns given the value it delivers.
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BEST ALL-IN-ONE DESKTOP
HP PAVILION 24 ALL-IN-ONE (2020)
$799.99 as tested EDITORS’ CHOICE Llllh
All-in-one PC sales may not have exploded, as some predicted, but there are some excellent
options on the market. The Pavilion 24 is our favorite. The $799.99 model is a great alternative
to the pricey Apple iMac. The design is more elegant than its price may suggest, and its
performance, ports, and storage capacity leave little to be desired for a general use desktop. A
hearty front soundbar, pop-up webcam, and 24-inch screen round out its strong case as a
machine for work or entertainment, all without making you fit a tower on your desk.
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BEST COMPACT DESKTOP
INTEL NUC 9 EXTREME KIT (GHOST CANYON)
$1,700 AS TESTED (BARE-BONES CONFIGURATION)
EDITORS’ CHOICE Llllh
Intel is a perennial innovator on mini-desktops, but the NUC 9 Extreme Kit takes things to a
whole different level. The bare-bones kit is built around Intel’s nascent Compute Element, a
card-style module that contains the CPU, memory slots, and storage module slots in a sort of
“mini motherboard” the size of a video card. This allows the NUC 9 room to incorporate a
compact ordinary graphics card and include the power supply inside the chassis. The result: a
hyper-dense, compact dynamo of a mini-PC.
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