Desktops

4 Best Desktops For Office Use: Reviewed & Compared

If you your office work demands that you sit on a computer for prolonged hours, then you need a suitable desktop.

The good news is that the office desktops cost a fraction of the usual high performance or gaming desktops, yet they are powerful enough to handle day to day office work like a charm.

In this article, we will have a look at the best desktops for office use.

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All in One Desktops vs Standalone Towers

There are two types of office desktops that you can look into: all in one and standalone.

All in one desktops basically have the computer hardware built into them. They feature a complete solution including a monitor, webcam, speakers etc. Unfortunately, they are expensive.

The standalone desktops, on the other hand, only offer the desktop tower with the hardware inside. They do not come with a monitor or a webcam. However, they are much cheaper and excellent for those who already own a monitor.

Here is a short list of pros for both standalone and all in one desktops

Pros of All in One Desktops

  • Offer a complete package.
  • Come with a monitor and other goodies like webcam and speakers
  • Promote a compact and cleaner work environment
  • Generally more beautiful and elegant

Pros of Standalone Desktop

  • Cheaper than AIO
  • Easily upgradable
  • Great for a large office space with multiple monitor setup
  • Often offers a more powerful hardware (at the same price range)

Features We Recommend that You Go For

The class or the grade of a desktop is measured by what processor it harbors.

On one end you have the desktops with an Intel Celeron processor which is an entry level processor suitable for only the least demanding tasks. Thus it is great for basic home use.

One the other side of the spectrum you have desktops that offer Intel Core i7 or even Core i9 processors. These are behemoths capable for high performance computing. They are essential for high level gaming, simulations, engineering work, designing, editing etc.

In between the two ends you have the versatile, mainstream processors. These are relatively affordable and also offer a great performance.

Thus, processors like Intel Core i3 and Intel Core i5 (AMD Ryzen 3 and AMD Ryzen 5) are options that are great for offices as well as business use.

Of course office work is an umbrella term for various uses. Working on a mere Microsoft Work or Excel and working on a large scale project on Primavera can both be classified as office works.

As such, in this article we will look at the best desktops for office use that at least have an Intel Core i3 processor. Anything lower, i.e Pentium, Celeron, AMD A12 etc can be limiting and may cause frustration. We will omit those options.

Of course, a typical desktop for office use DOES NOT feature a graphics card. Graphics card is only necessary for gaming or for anything that requires 3D designing and rendering.

Also Read: Pros and Cons of Desktops


List of The Best Desktops for Office Use

We have chosen the following as the best desktops in this category:

  1. 1
    Acer Aspire Z24-890-UA91 – 24″ – High Performance AIO Desktop
  2. 2
    HP 22-c0030 – 22″ – Low Grade AIO Desktop
  3. 3
    Acer Aspire TC-885-UA91 – Recommended Standalone Desktop
  4. 4
    HP Pavilion – Standalone Desktop for Low Grade Designing

5 Best Desktops for Office Use Reviewed

1. Acer Aspire Z24-890-UA91 – 24″ – High Performance AIO Desktop

acer Aspire Z24-890-UA91 AIO Desktop...
  • 9th Generation Intel Core i5-9400t Processor...
  • 23.8" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen...
  • 12GB DDR4 Memory, 512GB SSD & 8x DVD-Writer...
  • 802.11AC Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet LAN...

Next up we have another AIO Desktop from Acer. This one, however, offers a much higher performance for a typical office environment.

For starters while it also offers an Intel Core i5 processor, the i5 in this is far more superior than the one in the C24-865 above.

Acer Aspire Z24-890-UA91 feature an Intel Core i5-9400T.

While the Intel Core i5-8250U has is a quad core processor, this, on the other hand, is a hexa core processor. Furthermore, while the Core i5-8250U has a base clock speed of 1.6 GHz, the Core i5-9400T has a base clock speed of 1.8 GHz per core.

You must also note that Core i5-9400T hails from the latest 9th generation of Intel processors as such it offers newer features like higher Core count as well as a larger cache memory.

Note that Core i5-9400T is not the same as Core i5-9400. The latter is much more powerful.

Besides the processor, another highly lucrative feature it offers is a USB Type C connection with which you can interface with newer devices.

The desktop offers a large 512 GB of SSD as well – which in itself makes this quite appealing. Moreover, it offers 12 GB of RAM, webcam, keyboard mouse, WiFi and many connectivity options.

Basically, if you want the most up to date AIO desktop for your office, then this is one of the best desktops for office use.


2. HP 22-c0030 – 22″ – Low Grade AIO Desktop

HP 22-Inch All-in-One Computer, Intel Core...
  • Processor: 8th Generation intel(r) core(tm...
  • Monitor: 10-point touch-enabled...
  • Memory: 4 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM (upgradable to...
  • Hard Drive: 1 TB 7200Rpm SATA.

This is the least powerful AIO desktop that we can recommend for office use.

It is affordable and offers a decent enough hardware for simple office tasks such as word processing, email correspondence, basic accounting, spreadsheet work etc.

HP 22-c0030 offers a comfortable 22 inch FHD screen with an Intel Core i3-8130U processor. While this is obviously weaker than the Core i5-8250U or the Core i5-9400T we saw above, it is far better as compared to the entry level Celeron or Pentium processors.

Thus, Intel Core i3-8130U is NOT an entry level processor. However, it isn’t a mid range processor either. It is a processor that falls somewhere in between the two.

Besides that, the display on this AIO is a Touchscreen. While you most probably won’t really be using this feature much, it is good to have an added navigation facility.

One great feature about this desktop is that the 1 TB storage that it offers operates at 7200 RPM instead of the conventional 5400 RPM. The faster the HDD, the better would be the performance.

The only relative drawback of this machine is that it only offers 4 GB of RAM. It CAN be upgraded to a maximum of 16 GB, the standard 4 GB of RAM may show limitations when performing hardcore multitasking.

Like all AIO, this too comes with a keyboard and a mouse, albeit the ones featured with this are quite elegant.

So for the most basic use, this is one of the best desktops for office use.


3. Acer Aspire TC-885-UA91 – Recommended Standalone Desktop

acer Aspire TC-885-UA91 Desktop, 9th Gen...
  • 9th Generation Intel Core i3-9100 Processor...
  • 8GB DDR4 Memory, 512GB SSD & 8x DVD-Writer...
  • 802. 11AC Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet LAN...
  • 1 - USB 3. 1 Type C Gen 2 port (up to...

This is by far one of the best standalone desktops not just for office use but for a wide array of tasks.

It is affordable, has a compact form factor, looks elegant, and features a highly well rounded hardware configuration that suits the needs of today.

First of all, you should not be off by the fact that it only offers an Intel Core i3 processor.

The thing is, there are many different types of i3, i5 and i7 processor. The i3 processor here i.e the Core i3-9100 is far better in performance than even the Core i5-8250U found on the Acer Aspire C24-865-ACi5NT above.

Core i5-8250U vs Core i3-9100

Core i5-8250U (left) vs Core i3-9100 (right). Source: userbenchmark.com

As you can see, according to benchmarks, despite being a Core i3 processor, the Core i3-9100 is 44% better in performance as compared to the Core i5-8250U processor.

Besides a fairly powerful, yet affordable processor, this desktop also features a large 512 GB of SSD drive. SSD are exceptional for a smoother and well rounded performance.

It also offer 8 GB of RAM, WiFi, Type C port, DVD/CD drive and comes with a keyboard and a mouse.

If you are considering a standalone PC over a AIO desktop, then we highly recommend this as the best desktop for office use. It has the juice to support multiple displays connected to it. It is small, affordable, yet has a robust performance.

Also Read: Desktops for Programming and Coding


4. HP Pavilion – Standalone Desktop for Low Grade Designing

HP Pavilion (590-p0050) Desktop Computer with...
  • ACHIEVE MORE - For the hardworking...
  • FAST PROCESSOR - 6 core 8th Generation Intel...
  • Intel Optane MEMORY 16GB - Optane memory...
  • GREAT FOR MULTI-TASKING - 8 GB DDR...

Finally, we have a standalone desktop that is suitable for office use that occasionally deals with designing and editing work.

This is only desktop in this lists that includes an dedicated graphics card i.e the NVIDIA GTX 1050. While this is no way near being the top of the line graphics card, it has enough power to support low-moderate levels of 3D and CAD drawings.

Of course, another reason why the NVIDIA GTX 1050 is recommended is because it is quite cheap. If you look at the cream of the graphics cards, a single NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti alone can cost your almost thrice as much as this desktop.

Besides a decent dedicated graphics card, it features an Intel Core i5-8300 processor. In terms of performance, it is almost as great as the Intel Core i3-9100 featured in the previous desktop.

Finally, it features a nominal 8 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. It also includes an optical drive, card reader, USB Type C port, HDMI port and WiFi. You also get a mouse and keyboard included with the package.

In the end, this desktop should only appeal to those who specifically need a dedicated graphics card in their desktop. Therefore, for low level CAD designing, photo/video editing, this is one of the best desktops for office use.

Also Read: Best Desktop for Architects


Conclusion

In this article we had a look at some of the best desktops for office use. We looked at both AIO as well as standalone desktops.

The key point to remember here is that a desktop for office use is not as powerful as a designing, editing, workstation or a gaming grade desktop.

Nor is an office desktop as weak as an average home use PC. It is something that falls in between. As such, you should aim for a mid range hardware that can ensure smooth functioning for your office software.

Also, if you are going to use a specific software in your office, that software would have its minimum and recommended requirements. We believe that you should always aim to meet the recommended requirements when procuring a new desktop in order to make it future proof.

acer Aspire Z24-890-UA91 AIO Desktop...
  • 9th Generation Intel Core i5-9400t Processor...
  • 23.8" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen...
  • 12GB DDR4 Memory, 512GB SSD & 8x DVD-Writer...
  • 802.11AC Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet LAN...