ASUS ET2700 All-in-One Review: An Amazing Multimedia Experience

Overview

What's in our box:

• ASUS ET2700 All-in-One PC
• Wireless full-sized ASUS keyboard
• Wireless ASUS mouse
• ASUS external subwoofer

Build and Design
ASUS has improved its all-in-one lineup tremendously with the introduction of the ET2700 Series. While older ASUS AIOs might have been touch screen capable, the surface of the display was hard to use and consumers were generally not as pleased as they should have been. When the ET2700 came out in January of this year, though, ASUS became a serious multimedia AIO competitor. This bad boy can be equipped with a 10-finger multi-touch screen. While our review unit isn't touch screen capable, the concept is still very innovative and cool. 

What can a 10-finger touchscreen do?
There are plenty of apps available for touch screens nowadays and some of the most popular are Pictionary type games, but one that stands out the most for us doesn't involve drawing. Since the arrival of multi-touch AIOs the idea of being able to play a virtual piano on a screen with all of your fingers has been tossed around. The ET2700 makes this possible; ASUS even promoted this machine during CES 2012 by shooting video with the reps playing the virtual piano on it. And the large 27-inch display will certainly lend a hand. 

That's right, 27-inches. ASUS decided to go large and make this an AIO that can double as a TV, mounted up in your living room. ASUS also made everything wireless; keyboard, mouse, and a wireless networking card. Optionally, users can add on a TV tuner and watch regular old television. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the future of most entertainment AIOs; large screens, wireless capabilities, and shipped with everything to mount it up. That being said, our ET2700IUTS review unit was a little too big to be used effectively on my desk. For that reason, ASUS offers two smaller form factors that are essentially the same as this unit, at 23.6 and 21.5 inches. If you don't want an imposing all-in-one sitting in front of you on the desk, we highly recommend going with one of these more feasible form factors.

Speaking of form factor, for all that's jam-packed into it, it's quite slim. Without counting the stand (or the "pedestal" as ASUS calls it), it's only a few inches thick. The exact measurements are 25.9 x 20.0 x  9.1 inches (WxHxD) and it weighs in at about 30 pounds. 

Above: ASUS ET2700 photo from above to show depth

The stand is made of hard, durable metal. It allows the ET2700 to be adjusted up or down at slight angles. And we mean slight - the pedestal wasn't made for positioning the display at radical angles. However, it can be moved enough to suit people of almost all statures. It can be positioned a few degrees upward and about 10 degrees downward. The VESA compatible wall mounting is an optional accessory.

Inputs and Expansion
The ET2700 features inputs on the left and back sides. On the left side (covered by a secure door panel) are two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0/eSATA combo, an SD card reader, separate headphone, microphone and audio line-out jacks, and a special jack for the optional ASUS subwoofer accessory. The backside ports and inputs don't have a door panel to secure them. Included on the back are two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, VGA (d-sub in), RJ-45 Ethernet, an optional TV jack, DC power slot, and a Kensington lock slot. Furthermore, featured on the right side is a Blu-ray Reader/Writer combo and DVD-SuperMulti optical drive. The ET2700 can hold up to 8GB-1333MHz RAM and up to 2TB of storage space.

Screen and Speakers
We fell in love with this display. It's a 27.0-inch widescreen FHD VA panel (16:9 aspect ratio, LED-backlight). This means it's a quality display - it's not your run-of-the-mill wishy-washy screen. Full HD (1080p) is a brilliant resolution to double as a TV. The surface is glossy and quite reflective - but if you can get over that, we can guarantee that you'll love everything about it. We measured the contrast ratio with our light meter and came up with 2690:1 - quite an amazing reading. HD movies will look fantastic at full 1080p; the whitest whites will shine against the darkest colors and you'll be able to see every color in between at great clarity. To put it in perspective, your average laptop display ususally only gets around 250:1 in terms of contrast.

ASUS also boasts about the fact that it has a 178 degree wide viewing angle, which we found to be true. This means that up to 178 degrees, no matter how you look at the screen, it'll show hardly any viewing distortion - the picture will not fade away  even if you're sitting off-center from it.

The ET2700 has Realtek HD audio and a huge speaker bar across the front. ASUS was going for a surround sount effect, and they've pretty much achieved it. We say "pretty much" because, no, the audio isn't perfect. We imagine a lot of people are going to use this AIO as a replacement to their old TV or at least mounted up in an entertainment room - meaning audio is more important than ever. That being said, the volume needs to reach pretty high levels because you're not going to be sitting in front of it if you puchased the 27" model - and they do get high enough to be heard distinctly, but for those of us who love to crank our music up a ton, we're left feeling like we wished it got even higher. Does that mean it won't be adequate? Of course not.

Other than that, the quality of the sound is what we'd rate as "good." As in, better than most but certainly not the best. There is minimal distortion when it comes to noise, but we did notice that higher pitches tend to make that "ringing" noise rather than the high pitch the audio is trying to convey. We also noticed that the speakers muffles the audio at times. And, it won't be able to play every subtle nuance found in music, but it will definitely be adequate for watching movies and browsing the Web. If you plan on using it for gaming or are intent on listening to music using only the best equipment, we would recommend a good set of external speakers.