There are far too many, probably all of the reviewers of this new PC form factor as well as PC's in general that make a critical mistake and may readers make as well. They are reviewing essentially a mid range to high end PC though set up to emphasize gaming as a direct price comparison to the consoles. I am sorry but this is a classic apples to oranges comparison. Yes at face value if you only are considering gaming the $600 dollar and up price tag is very high in comparison to a console and if the only thing you ever want to do with it is to play games well you are an idiot for spending the money for a PC go get a console. However if you consider all that can be done when having a fairly high end (comparison to a console) PC the $600+ price tag is not high at all. Here is a list of things that can be done with your new gaming PC/laptop that you will never be able to do with a console.
There are probably 5-10 times the number of available PC games than all of the consoles combined.
Run a word processor
efficiently check email
easy access to all of your social media sites
Create digital art using software such as Corel Painter, Photoshop, the GIMP(a free Photoshop alternative), Art Rage etc etc.
Photo editing using Photoshop, the GIMP and many others
Use a Wacom drawing tablet for use with the mentioned art programs
Digital music creation
CAD software
3D modeling/animation software the best one in my opinion because it is very powerful but also is free is Blender
DTP Adobe In Design, Quark Express and a good free alternative Scribus
IF you are interested in game development once you become proficient at using some of the above art programs you can as a private user download and use for free the following professional 3D game engines; Unity 5, Unreal 4, Cryengine and there are probably others I do not know about. You only have to pay royalties to the companies after you begin selling games you have created.
Set up your new PC to dual boot with Linux or the SteamOS that is based upon Debian Linux
Have a really good media center using VLC, PLEX, XMBC etc without the restrictions on what types of media formats that can be played. and the list could go on and on but you get the point.
So without mentioning all of the things that can be done with the new PC that you just purchased that you will never be able to do on a console with the only thing mentioned is how how much more that the PC costs in comparison to a console is just out and out misleading and does a disservice to your readers. Another thing that no one mentions is that most of the avid gamers out there are pretty much platform agnostic and own a combination of devices, for example I currently have a high end PC, a PS3, PS4, and an Nvidia Shield tablet that are all connected to my HD3DTV via HDMI connection with my Yamaha RX V773 AVR with Klipsch RF 82 II 5.0 speaker set along with an SVS PB 13 Ultra subwoofer. Oh and I am also considering getting an Xbox One.
I just built a new ultra small form factor fairly high end gaming PC using the following components. Keep in mind that I am a long time PC gamer and have been building my desktop gaming rigs since around 2001. Also though my build cost more than the Asus reviewed here in comparison to it is a very high end PC. I along with gaming am involved with several of the mentioned activities I listed so feel that my $855 build was much better value than the $489 PS4 that was bundled with an additional controller that was purchased back in February of 2014.
Here is a listing of the components used
Raven RVZ01 small form factor/HTPC case by SilverStone $89.00
Intel Core i7-4790K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core 4.0GHz
LGA 1150 BX80646I74790K Desktop Processor with
Intel HD Graphics 4600 $339
G.SKILL TridentX Series 16GB DDR3 ram memory $109
SILVERSTONE SFX Series SX600-G 600W power supply $129
MSI MSI Z97I GAMING ACK LGA 1150 Intel Z97
Mini ITX Intel Motherboard $189
EVGA Geforce GTX 970 SC GPU $330
Total $855
Keep in mind that this is my system and most of the components are in the Best in Class category
that = much higher cost. I also just realized that the price of this Asus PC is in British pounds not in USDs. Currently £649.00=$1006.76 so for $150 less my build is a far more powerful system.