The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3 ($559.99) is an entry-level all-in-one (AIO) PC that in the first place blush seems to be pricier than it’s. The funky base provides a splash of favor to the system’s look, and lends stable assist to the 23.8-inch show, which is extra beneficiant than the 21.5-inch panels generally present in AIOs at this value. Look nearer, although, and the IdeaCentre reveals some missed alternatives. The show could also be bigger than these of different price range AIOs, however the backlight is disappointingly dim. The webcam can also be underwhelming, the storage capability is tight, and there is not a single USB-C port. You are higher off spending a pair hundred {dollars} extra on the HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One, which is extra succesful and better-equipped. Or, spend much less and ditch Home windows in favor of Chrome OS with the HP Chromebase All-in-One 22.
A Boring Show With a Stylish Base
The IdeaCentre AIO 3 reviewed right here is the bottom mannequin. It retails for $559.99 at Lenovo.com and options an AMD Ryzen 3 4300U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The Ryzen 3 is a mobile-class chip supposed to be used largely in laptop computer PCs, a chip compromise not unusual in price range AIOs that do not have room for the highly effective cooling system required for a desktop-class CPU. The step-up mannequin prices $699.99, for which you get a cellular Ryzen 5 processor and double the space for storing. Each fashions function a 23.8-inch, non-touch show with a full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) native decision.
For a price range all-in-one, the IdeaCentre AIO 3 seems to be fairly stylish. The elegant stand suspends the show above your desk or desk. The stand is created from a single bar that curves round in a C-shape and extends upward behind the proper aspect of the show. The stand not solely seems to be cool, nevertheless it additionally lends stable assist to the remainder of the AIO. Plus, it supplies a handy spot for stashing the keyboard out of the best way if you aren’t utilizing it.
Skinny bezels body the show to offer the system a contemporary look. The show measures 21.2 inches extensive by 13.2 inches tall, and the underside bezel sits 4.5 inches above your desk. You get neither peak nor swivel changes—solely tilt. From the show bezels and again panel to the stand and bundled keyboard and mouse, every thing is decked out in black, which makes the IdeaCentre AIO 3 look extra like a company PC than a house leisure heart.
The complete HD decision of the show suffices for informal use like looking the net and watching 1080p movies. It’s much less preferrred for gazing textual content all day and any severe media enhancing. Textual content seems to be a bit blurry, and the perimeters of pictures can look fuzzy.
The show is rated for a modest 250 nits of brightness, which is widespread on price range all-in-ones in addition to entry-level laptops. Testing with a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor confirmed it is a bit brighter than its ranking at 272 nits, however this can be a show on which you’ll seemingly maintain the brightness setting at its max. I had it maxed out for many of my time with it, and it provided sufficient brightness and distinction in my house workplace, which will get a modest quantity of pure mild.
We additionally used the sensor to measure the show’s coloration saturation—what share of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 coloration gamuts or palettes it will possibly present. It was a tick away from full protection of sRGB at 97%, together with creditable protection of Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 at 75% and 78%, respectively.
The IdeaCentre AIO 3 incorporates a pair of 3-watt stereo audio system that produce middling audio output. They sound no higher than your common laptop computer audio system. They attain an appropriate degree at max quantity, however there’s little separation between excessive and mid tones, and little to no bass. They pale compared to the dynamic sound produced by the 5-watt audio system within the HP Chromebase All-in-One 22.
Blasts From the Previous
Regardless of the cupboard’s trendy look, a couple of options (and some lacking options) make the IdeaCentre AIO 3 look like it’s behind the instances. For starters, there’s a dearth of USB Sort-C ports, which implies you’ll have to find a dongle everytime you wish to join a USB-C gadget to the machine. And hiding behind the show subsequent to the facility button is a DVD-RW drive. Except you’ve got bought a film or picture assortment you have not transferred off of discs but, that is seemingly a ineffective function. The final time I burned a CD or DVD, Jamiroquai was nonetheless a factor.
I’d fortunately commerce the DVD drive for a USB-C port or two. A lot of the ports are positioned in a neat row on the again panel behind the show. There you’ll discover a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.1 port, an HDMI-out port, and an Ethernet jack.
On the left aspect you get one other USB 3.1 port, an SD card reader, and a headphone/microphone combo jack.
Wirelessly connectivity is a technology behind with Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0, though the shortage of Wi-Fi 6 is not unusual amongst price range PCs.
Lenovo bundles a primary, wired keyboard-and-mouse set with the IdeaCentre AIO 3. Each are serviceable, however the ensuing litter of wires in your desk ruins the in any other case clear design of the system. It’s uncommon for a price range all-in-one to incorporate a dearer wi-fi pair, however you do get simply that with the HP Chromebase All-in-One 22.
Testing the IdeaCentre AIO 3: Ryzen Up
The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3 is among the many first Home windows-based all-in-one PCs we’ve reviewed since we moved to our new suite of 2021 benchmarks, which leaves evaluating its efficiency with the competitors a bit difficult. For benchmark testing, we included Apple’s 24-inch iMac, nevertheless it’s incompatible with lots of the Home windows-based benchmarks we use, so we added a price range non-AIO desktop within the Core i3-based Dell Inspiron Desktop (3891). As a result of the IdeaCentre AIO 3 makes use of a cellular processor, we additionally included a pair of laptops: the Ryzen 5-based Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 and the Core i5-based Samsung Galaxy Guide Professional 13.
The principle benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure total efficiency for office-centric duties similar to phrase processing, spreadsheeting, internet looking, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive take a look at to evaluate the load time and throughput of a PC’s storage.
Three benchmarks give attention to the CPU, utilizing all accessible cores and threads, to price a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates common apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher).
Our final productiveness take a look at is Puget Techniques’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to price a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of basic and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The IdeaCentre AIO 3 completed proper the place we anticipate it could on PCMark 10: in between the Core i3-based Dell Inspiron Desktop and Core i5-based Samsung Galaxy Guide Professional 13, and behind the Ryzen 5-based Lenovo IdeaPad 3. The M1-based iMac led the best way on our HandBrake, Cinebench, and Geekbench checks.
The IdeaCentre AIO 3 completed final on Cinebench and Geekbench, and bested solely the Galaxy Guide Professional 13 on HandBrake. It fared a bit higher on our Photoshop take a look at, indicating that it’s able to some mild media enhancing however to not the extent that it’ll catch the attention of bargain-hunting content material creators.
We take a look at Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark suite: Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for methods with built-in graphics), and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).
We additionally run two checks from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses each low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like picture rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Automobile Chase checks, rendered offscreen to accommodate totally different show resolutions, train graphics and compute shaders utilizing the OpenGL programming interface and {hardware} tessellation respectively. The extra frames per second (fps), the higher.
On each the 3DMark checks and GFXBench checks, the IdeaCentre AIO 3 and its built-in AMD Radeon graphics completed forward of the Dell Inspiron Desktop, which options Intel’s previous-generation UHD built-in graphics. However the IdeaCentre AIO 3 was behind the Samsung Galaxy Guide Professional 13, which options Intel’s newest built-in Iris Xe graphics silicon, and the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14, which options built-in Radeon graphics. With underwhelming 3DMark scores and body charges lower than 60 frames per second on GFXBench, the IdeaCentre AIO 3 is a poor selection for players.
Open to Chrome? Head to the Chromebase
The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3 is an entry-level all-in-one that is smart if you’re seeking to max out the quantity of display actual property for the cash. It serves up a bigger show than you may in any other case discover for the value, however a full HD decision stretched throughout a smaller 21.5-inch display may look higher. And the cellular CPU and lack of USB-C make the IdeaCentre laborious to advocate until you discover it deeply discounted throughout a clearance sale.
You will be higher off spending a bit extra for the HP Pavilion 24 All-in-One, our favourite price range Home windows all-in-one, when you can. Or, if you’re on the lookout for an all-in-one so as to add as a secondary laptop in your house, the HP Chromebase All-in-One 22 is a superb selection if you’re open to embracing Chrome OS.
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