MSI Modern AM271P 11M AIO PC Review

How Much Does it Cost?

I must admit, I’m struggling to get a good price comparison on this one, as AIO PCs tend to very quite drastically. This one is roughly £1000-1100 and the best place for stock right now appears to be Newegg. For international customers, you can check the Where to Buy tool on the MSI website here. eMarket have them for 1287 EUR, but honestly, I’ve not heard of the store before, so can’t really recommend them personally.

Overview

Of course, at a little over £1000, this system isn’t particularly cheap. However, keep in mind exactly what you get included in this bundle, and it’s honestly pretty decent value. For starters, you get a LOT of convenience in more ways than one. It’s built and ready to rock right out of the box, which was a huge time saver. I screwed the stand on, plugged it in, logged into my Microsoft account, and Windows 10 was ready to rock and roll. For those who aren’t particularly technology literate, this is certainly a welcome setup process.

Furthermore, there’s no hardware to deal with, relatively speaking. You don’t have to build the system, and it’s all done in advance. I mean, that’s no surprise, really, as this thing has more in common with a laptop than it does with a desktop system. However, for advanced users and future-proofing, there are ways to upgrade RAM and storage easily enough.

It can actually act as a monitor without booting the PC, which is great, as I can hook up an Xbox, laptop, or whatever really. Furthermore, it has a HDMI out, so you can plug in a 2nd monitor, projector, or whatever you want really.

Design

It’s also fantastically compact. There’s no tower to deal with, so if you’re short on space on or around your desk, it’s a massive space-saver. You can even mount it on a VESA mount, so one of those fancy wall or desk camp arm mounts would be a great pairing with this system. That being said, should you need to pick up and move the entire system, it’s no harder than moving an LCD monitor.

Aesthetically, it doesn’t even look like a computer, it’s just a nice monitor, and that’s pretty cool. They’ve kept it stylish and simple, which suits me perfectly.

Performance

The 4-core 8-thread CPU is no slouch, and the Core i7 never felt like it was holding me up at all. It did surprisingly well in benchmarks, especially for a CPU that’s limited to just 22W. There was a bit of fan noise when I really ragged it with benchmarks, but it’s no louder than my Xbox Series X (which is pretty quiet).

The gaming performance of that little IRIS chip is impressive too, which I didn’t bother with our usual full suite of benchmarks since putting this 22W chip up against a bunch of RTX-equipped systems would have been a bloodbath it’s not without its merits. I found it played games like Fortnite, Minecraft etc., so long as your modest with the resolution and settings. It’s not what it’s built for, but hey, if the kids find it, they’ll be able to use it. That being said, I ran some retro emulators on it, and everything up to PS2 and Dreamcast ran great, should you wish to go that route and sneak some gaming into your office rig.

Should I Buy One?

This clearly isn’t the right system for everyone. If the bulk of your workday is an online editor like Google, WordPress, or sitting in Microsoft office, you spend a lot of time in Google Meets/Zoom calls, and you like to keep a few YouTube and reddit tabs to the side, you’ll have no complaints. The Core i7 will do some moderate HD video editing but will leave you wanting if you’re hoping to render in 4K. However, it can deal with some pretty hefty workloads in Publisher and Photoshop easily enough. Some casual gaming is possible, but clearly not the intended market, but overall, for such a compact and stylish system, the price is competitive, and the performance is surprisingly potent. While it does mean my personal daily gaming needs, my kids and my partner have been fighting to use this system all week for their work and media consumption, and I can’t blame them.