HP ships hack-friendly all-in-one

Crack open the Z1 and tinker to your heart's content

HP has begun shipping its easy-to-upgrade all-in-one desktop PC, the Z1, worldwide, the computer giant said today.

The 27in, 2560 x 1440, one-billion colour screen machine packs a clamshell casing that allows hardware hackers the crack the Z1 open to add and replace its inner workings.

Aimed at punters needing serious performance, the Z1 packs Intel Xeon processors and Nvidia's Quadro graphics chippery. It's for video editors, industrial designers - folk like that.

Which is why prices start at a staggering £1349/$1899, though the base model only features a 3.3GHz Core i3-2120.

Other components include support for up to 32GB of ECC DDR 3 memory, lots of space for 10,000rpm hard drives, 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi and nine USB ports: two USB 3.0 connectors, the rest USB 2.0, three of which are inside the case.

HP is offering the Z1 with Windows 7 Pro in its 32- and 64-bit forms, or with a selection of Linux distros.

The monster machine measures 660 x 584 x 419mm, including the stand, and weighs 21kg. All the details are on HP's website. ®