Lenovo IdeaCentre A700-40244CU

We've seen lots of all-in-ones with controversial worth lately, but the Lenovo IdeaCentre A700 40244CU is a quite gross offender. It's an costly network at $1,249, and deliberation its slow opening and insufficient of a Blu-ray drive, we're not precisely coherent on because you should pay more for this PC. We do similar to the A700's box design, and it comes with a strong preference of utilitarian outmost features, inclusive multi-part video submit options. While you may be bewitched by this PC's smooth looks or its connectivity options, we would urge on you not to solve since its feeble horsepower, especially deliberation that there are reduction costly all-in-ones from Gateway and Acer that offer comparable, improved value.

The specific model of Lenovo's A700 line is a prearranged sell configuration. You can find other A700s online with various features, and Lenovo itself offers the A700 40244JU with a Blu-ray drive and twice the mental recall for $50 more than the 40244CU reviewed here. In possibly case, the cost is high compared with what you obtain from other vendors.

Before we excavate in to the features, the A700 framework deserves a few attention. Considering the number of clunky-looking all-in-ones out there, Lenovo's large pattern is welcome. Aside from the branding stickers, the box is giveaway from garish detailing, but Lenovo has combined a few visible fascination by offsetting the 23-inch, 1,920x1,080 touch-screen manifestation from the body of the A700 case. We moreover similar to the haptic hold controls on the bottom corner of the display. Not all of the lit-up icons talk their role effectively, but simply dire them will detect controls for volume, manifestation quality, underlighting, manifestation power, and manifestation submit toggle. We know of no other all-in-one that offers similar extent in its built-in network controls.

While we similar to the looks of the IdeaCentre A700 improved than the of many of its competition, we can't say the same for its value. Consider the $999 Gateway One ZX6951-53 . It expenses $250 reduction than the A700 and features a significantly faster CPU and a Blu-ray drive. The Lenovo has a faster graphics card, and a incomparable hard disk than the Gateway, but conjunction of the features is sufficient to make up for what it lacks, ample reduction the cost difference.

The things listed in the map out on top of do not account for all of the expenses in these PCs. We'd expect the Lenovo's well-equipped framework to cost more than the Gateway's easier housing. And whilst connectivity options do not normally cost that ample to implement, the Lenovo moreover has the corner in its preference of submit and outputs. See the Gateway examination for its wonky HDMI implementation. In contrast, the Lenovo offers, amid other ports, HDMI in and out, together with part video outputs.

Despite the Lenovo's advantages, we still find it has a worth deficit. Consider the Acer Aspire Z5700-U3112 , moreover listed above. That network expenses $1,099 and features a faster CPU than the Lenovo. The Lenovo once again has the graphics-card edge, but conjunction that underline nor its more discriminating framework justifies the slower broad performance, or the aloft cost tag.

While any of these all-in-ones could do a improved work of maximizing its entertainment and computing promising (would it snuff out a businessman to offer Blu-ray, HDMI input, and a decent CPU in the same system?), the Lenovo's worth is amid the worst in this cost operation since that it misses out on both Blu-ray and broad performance, and it's moreover the many expensive.

The IdeaCentre A700 is swift sufficient to navigate typical applications and fool around streaming HD video calm smoothly. Because it uses a quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU with HyperThreading, it moreover leads its difficulty in singular multithreaded focus processing. That, combined with its video card, should make digital calm origination at least acceptable with this PC. Compared with the other systems in its cost range, though, the IdeaCentre A700 is a bad multitasker, and it's moreover a slouch in apps that rest on single-core estimate speed. In other words, the fact that its CPU is a Core i7 isn't sufficient to defeat its slow 1.7GHz timepiece speed compared with the 3.0GHz or faster CPUs in its cost category. The Core i7 of course helps due to its strong multicore capabilities, but for this price, we expect swift opening in all use scenarios.