IT Pro Verdict

Despite its neat all-in-one design, the A70z won’t set hearts a flutter. It is, in many senses, thoroughly unremarkable, but it is also an effective office machine with headroom for slightly more demanding uses. The display isn’t the best we’ve ever seen but as long as the tasks are modest this is certainly a machine worth considering for space and power saving reasons. Though we’d recommend at least adding more RAM, changing the keyboard and upping the warranty.

By Benny Har-Even

published 30 December 2009

in Reviews

More of a concern is the slight graininess in the image that we detected and close inspection revealed an oily mottled effect on the display, noticeable mostly on white backgrounds such as when running Microsoft Word. There's also colour shift when you move off axis from the centre so it's not ideal for sharing information.

When it comes to vertical viewing, the whole PC can at least be placed at the correct angle thanks to the sturdy metal stand at the back. At the sides of the machine there are two buttons for adjusting the brightness press the lower one first and then use both to set the brightness. We needed to turn this down to make it comfortable for use in the office so found no issues there. Overall, it's by no means a disaster of a display, but it's certainly not first rate.

The stark black bezel surrounding the display contains a web cam at the top, with an integrated microphone just next to this, so it's very convenient for video conferencing. However, it's not the most detailed or smoothest picture we've ever seen from a webcam, appearing grainy and slightly jerky. Use in good light and don't move your head too much is our advice.

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Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.

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