It's been over a year since a vendor submitted a budget all-in-one, so I had to dig deep into the review archive to find comparisons for the Best Buy-exclusive HP Omni 120-1024. What I found is that this $499 PC offers almost as many raw features as a $699 unit this time last year, although its performance is not quite as fast as I had hoped. I can recommend the Omni 120 if you want a simple desktop as a basic home computing/storage hub, or if you intend to do a lot of stationary typing. For more entertainment-oriented family computing, your $500 might be better directed toward an iPad.
The Omni 120 is the most affordable model of the handful of new all-in-ones from HP released earlier this fall. Aimed at budget shoppers looking for a basic, non-touch all-in-one desktop, the Omni line, and the 120 model in particular, features an inoffensive design (some might say bland), and a value-oriented assortment of components. You won't play demanding games with this PC, and I wouldn't recommend you use it for regular content creation, but it's perfectly serviceable as a light-duty, day-to-day home computer.
| HP Omni 120-1024 | Lenovo C315 | HP Pavilion All-In-One MS225 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $499 | $699 | $599 |
| Display size/resolution | 20-inches, 1,600x900 | 20-inches, 1,600x900 | 18.4-inches, 1,366x768 |
| CPU | 1.65GHz AMD Dual-Core 450E | 1.6GHz AMD Athlon II X2 250u | 1.6GHz AMD Athlon II X2 250 |
| Memory | 4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM | 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM | 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM |
| Graphics | 384MB AMD Radeon HD 6320 integrated graphics chip | 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4530 | 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics |
| Hard drives | 500GB 7,200 rpm | 500GB 7,200 rpm | 320GB, 7,200rpm |
| Optical drive | dual-layer DVD burner | dual-layer DVD burner | dual-layer DVD burner |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n wireless | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n wireless | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g wireless |
| Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) |
Compared with HP's January 2010 non-touch Pavilion All-in-One MS255 (its Omni precursor), the new Omni 120-1024 offers a much improved assortment of features for a lower cost. You get a larger monitor with a higher display resolution in the new model, as well as a larger hard drive and true high-bandwidth 802.11n wireless networking. The features in this new HP are almost identical to those of the Lenovo C315 budget all-in-one, which cost nearly $700 last summer. In any case, HP has hit all of the basic computing hardware notes with the Omni 120-1024, and for a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, the Omni 120's performance does not offer the same degree of improvements compared with the older models. The AMD E-450 chip in the new model has the same core clock speed as the Athlon II X2 in the Lenovo and the older HP, but it's built around a new design that emphasizes graphics processing as much as performing standard computing tasks. That design, combined with the fact that the E450 is a budget-class mobile chip, means this system will not fare well next to other CPUs, even older ones, designed for raw application processing. It's not entirely unreasonable for a $499 desktop like the Omni 120 to lag behind an older system like the Lenovo C315 that sold for $699 a year ago. But it's clear that although the Omni offers better features for the dollar than you would find a year ago, you cannot say the same about its performance.
I suspect most of the likely purchasers of this PC won't mind the comparatively slow speed, since it handles basic tasks like Web surfing, running office applications, and playing media files with no obvious difficulty. I can also report that the Omni 120 was able to play Portal 2. I couldn't use most of the advanced graphics settings, but the Omni was at least able to play the game smoothly at the display's native 1,600x900-pixel resolution. I would not expect the same success with more-demanding titles like Battlefield 3, Rage, and the upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but you may have success with older PC games.
The potential to run into applications that won't work on the Omni 120-1024 is one of the reason why I suggest that you might consider an iPad if you have $500 or so to spend. With an iPad and its Apple-curated App Store, you will essentially never run into software that you can't use. With the more open PC software universe, you can fairly easily find a game or a higher-end media-editing program that the Omni 120 can't run.
