All-in-one PCs

Look, if you think I’m just here to troll, my bad, but I could really use some advice:
I’m stuck on whether to pull the trigger on this Dell OptiPlex All-in-One. Honestly, since my old HP's laptop is basically on its deathbed, I’ve become pretty skeptical about their hardware lately.
Has anyone actually used this specific model or something similar? Also, what’s your honest take on the whole all-in-one concept?

The only real upside is that there aren't a ton of cables cluttering things up.
But honestly, the performance is just too weak, and the price tag is way too high. I guess you could build a much more capable "standard" desktop for that kind of money instead.

I don't quite get the hype behind this trend.

On the plus side, they look sleek and they take up way less desk space than a traditional desktop setup.

Now, the tech nerds will probably point out that laptops offer the same thing, with the only real difference being a larger screen.

The downsides?
Everything that actually matters: they lack raw power, you can't really upgrade the RAM, storage, or optical drives, and they run hot because everything is crammed into such a tight chassis. Because of that, their lifespan is basically stuck at whatever a laptop's would be.

Use it for maybe two or three years, then toss it in the trash.

I’m a bit lost here, so I wanted to get your take on this Microsoft Surface Pro
Think it’d be a solid move to grab that
for $1933, maybe even saving a few bucks.
It's brand new.

For $1933 you'd probably get a better deal putting together a desktop and a monitor separately..

Larry Ortiz5 said:For $1933 you'd probably get a better deal putting together a desktop and a monitor separately..

I know these all-in-ones usually end up costing more, but given the price, it feels like a steal, so I figured... might as well see what the pros think. (It's not like I'm loaded, but... money talks, right?)

It’s a sleek little device and super convenient, but honestly? It isn't worth the asking price by a long shot.

You could probably put together a build like that for barely $667, and if you add a decent monitor on top, you’d likely be looking at less than $1167 total.

These are essentially laptop motherboards shoved into monitor housings.
They suffer from the worst of both worlds: you can't upgrade them, and you can't even repurpose them later.
It’s either a proper desktop PC or a laptop—nothing in between.