You have to feel for the average computer desktop. The beige box, a relic of distant past, subject to more eulogies than I can care to count, is still out-and-out the best choice if you’re after the best-bang-for-your-buck and complete customisability that no tablet or laptop can dream of offering. And desktop makers are innovating too, if the computers on these pages are any indicator.

And if you’re in the market for a new PC, you should absolutely consider one of these.

Apple iMac with Retina 5K display

Apple’s iconic all-in-one desktop has always been a popular desktop, pairing gorgeous design with potent performance in a chassis slimmer than most standalone monitors! But its latest high-resolution display variant completely resets the curve as far as what you can expect from desktop computing experiences, squeezing in a pixel-rich 5,120 x 2,880-pixel resolution display into its 27-in screen! Sure, it commands a daunting premium over the standard iMac, but for photography enthusiasts, graphics professionals and designers — and media junkies — it’s tough to beat!

HP Sprout

Now here’s a computer that’s pushing the boundaries of what one can expect from a PC. With the Sprout, HP has taken a standard all-in-one design and attached an overhanging arm that contains a scanner, a projector and an Intel
RealSense 3D camera. Used in conjunction with a removable touch mat, the Sprout allows you to scan objects in 2D and 3D, and immediately pull up the results using a custom software application. You can use the mat as a touch interface too, giving you new levels of touch control and flexibility hitherto unseen in desktops. Imagine pairing this with a 3D printer — I, for one, cannot wait for this setup to go mainstream!

HP Pavilion Mini and Apple Mac Mini

It’s no bigger than the average serving bowl, but the HP Pavilion Mini (top) is a super-compact yet surprisingly affordable desktop PC that can hide away behind a LCD TV or a monitor. It’s a competent choice for a study room or living room PC, equipped with up to 8GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and the ability to drive two monitors simultaneously via the dual options of HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. Of course, if you’re ready to pay a bit more, you can pick up what is arguably the ultimate small-form-factor option — the Apple Mac Mini. It’s small, quiet, energy-efficient and can take pride of place in any room of the house.

Alienware Area-51

If you’re thinking more alien spaceship, less desktop, you wouldn’t be wrong — the Alienware Area-51 looks like no PC I’ve ever seen. With the entire chassis shaped like a hexagon and LED lighting embedded into each side and around the front, the Area-51 is designed to attract attention. And since it carries the legendary Alienware badge, this machine is built ground-up for speed and performance, and may appeal only to the most committed of gamers.

Raspberry Pi 2

Are you a DIY-kind of person? The Raspberry Pi 2 is the PC for you. It’s barely bigger than a credit card and while it looks like a piece of the motherboard from a small PC, the Pi 2 fits in everything you need to run a PC — a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and 1GB of RAM. All you need to supply is a keyboard, mouse, monitor, a power supply (your smartphone charger will do just fine!) and a microSD card for storage…and you’ll be on your way installing a number of Linux distributions and if you’re willing to wait, a specialised version of Windows 10 later this year. All this for a PC that’s
under three grand! I loved the original Pi, and the Pi 2 continues to rock as the perfect tool for budding computer geeks, not to mention as the perfect starting point for a number of do-it-yourself home projects like a home network storage server or a low-cost home theater PC.