It’s 2020, and many people still use a tower desktop PC. In fact, some of them actively prefer desktop over a laptop or tablet. It may sound ridiculous, but buying desktops makes more sense than a laptop for these people. They usually prefer raw power over portability, or they just don’t want to pay for laptop’s comparatively higher price.

This is not to say that there aren’t powerful laptops out there that give you both power and portability — all you have to do is hook them up with a monitor and you’re good to go. However, rarely do laptops actually excel at both power and portability. Laptops with high specs are relatively big and large, and while they may perform well, they’re not as powerful as a tower with “similar” specs.

Most people these days think tower PCs are old-fashioned and don’t even consider buying them when looking to buy their next computer.

This may not always be the correct decision. We’ve been hearing about the exaggerated fall of desktop PCs for the past decade, but is there any truth to these rumours? Well, let’s clear things up first: Desktops aren’t going extinct. Many consumer and businesses still enthusiastically use them, especially gamers. Why you may ask? The answer is simple: Even after all these years, desktop PCs are still the most budget-friendly, customizable, and upgradeable computers on the market.

And today we’re going to review one such desktop PC, the HP Slimline 290. So, without any further ado, let’s just get into it.

Specifications

Design

The HP Slimline 290, as the name suggests, is a slim small form factor desktop PC. You can see right off the bat why its different from other HP tower PCs. Its specifications might not look high on paper, but it comfortably gets the job done and will not cause any problems. This Tower Desktop PC comes pre-installed with Windows 10 Home, allowing you to perform your task with more efficiency.

It measures 9.5 x 29.57 x 27 cm, making it possible to tuck under your desk. The HP desktop weights 2.97 kg, allowing you to comfortably move it around in your home. The dark black colour makes it look professional. Even if you put it on top of your desk, it won’t look out of place with your other devices.

The HP Slimline 290 comes with a wide variety of ports to help you plug in all kinds of devices. You’ll find two USB 3.1 Type A ports, one headphone/microphone combo, an HDMI-out 1.4, one RJ-45 ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and one VGA connector. There’s also a DVDRW Super Multi that will be very useful at certain times.

All in all, its design is a complete package with plenty of space for future upgrades.

Performance

Now we’re getting to the meat and potatoes of a desktop PC aka its performance. The HP Slimline 290 has a 3.1 GHz AMD Dual-Core A9-9425 APU processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, and no dedicated graphics card.

Its processor is comparable to the Intel Core i5-8265U and performs just as well. We opened multiple windows, played music, and edited simple documents simultaneously for hours without any noticeable delays.

The AMD A9 comes with the integrated Radeon R5 (Stoney Ridge) GPU. However, it’s not a graphics card and needs to share memory with the rest of the system, limiting its overall capabilities. A separate GPU will take the AMD A9’s performance to the next level. 

If you don’t need to utilize higher graphics functions for your work or games then the Radeon R5 will be more than enough. It will work well for most video streaming apps and will comfortably stream videos from sites like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu.

We weren’t able to play modern games on the HP Slimline 290 but were able to run older games from the early 2010s. While playing CS:GO at 720p settings, we got around 30fps on average.

Software

Setting up the HP Slimline 290 is simple and easy, especially if you’ve already done this before. All you need to do is follow the onscreen instructions in order to active the pre-installed Windows 10 Home.

There are also some pre-installed apps like HP Audio Switch, HP JumpStart, and McAfee LiveSafe™. But this doesn’t mean that you should start worrying about bloatware. HP has kept it clean for the most part. They are one of the leading tech developers in the world and know what they’re doing.

Verdict

The Hp Slimline 290-a0008na is a compact desktop tower PC that does what it says, no ifs and buts here. We would recommend it over its rivals because of the large variety of ports, upgradability, small size, performance, and price.