Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 3011 review: Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 3011

Our $749 Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 review unit comes with a 21.5-inch LCD, but Lenovo also sells a variety of other A600 configurations, including a lower-end model with the same display for $679. You might look into the $679 version for pure screen-size-for-your-buck, but our $749 review unit compares too closely with a faster, year-old all-in-one from Averatec. Next to its competitor, which is still available at mainstream retailers, it's hard for us to recommend the IdeaCentre A600 at this price.

6.0

Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 3011

The Good

High-resolution 21.5-inch LCD; semiuseful facial recognition software; replaceable memory, hard drive, and optical drive.

The Bad

Faster large-screen all-in-one available from Averatec for the same price; clunky design can pinch fingers.

The Bottom Line

The heart of Lenovo's IdeaCentre A600 is in the right place, offering a 21.5-inch LCD-based all-in-one for less than $800. But a faster competitor and a careless design turns us off from this particular A600 configuration. You might consider a different A600 build if you can live with the design, but we can't recommend the $749 version.

We actually started this review with a better impression of the IdeaCentre A600, since no other first tier PC vendor offers even a 20-inch LCD for less than $1,000, let alone a 21.5-inch model. Then we remembered our review of the year-old Averatec All-in-One, also with a 21.5-inch screen. We didn't love that system when it debuted at $1,300. However, in the year since its release, Averatec has dropped the price to $749 at Best Buy, and bumped the RAM up to 3GB.

Scan the features listed for each system and you'll see a few differences. The Lenovo system has a larger hard drive, ostensibly faster memory, and 802.11n wireless connectivity. The Averatec system has a faster processor and a TV tuner. How you favor those variations will depend on your individual needs. With little else swaying us in one direction or another, we favor the Averatec's faster CPU.

We're also surprised to find that both systems offer only the 32-bit version of Windows Vista and 3GB of RAM. Most PCs these days offer 64-bit Vista, which can take advantage of more system memory. We also never found that 3GB of RAM made a noticeable difference on 32-bit Vista compared with 2GB. You may have your opinion as to whether the Averatec's TV tuner is a better feature than the Lenovo's 500GB hard drive, but we'd suggest both vendors would have been smarter to opt for 2GB of RAM, and invested the memory cost difference in more worthwhile system features.

Cinebench test
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering Multiple CPUs

Rendering Single CPU

HP Pavilion Slimline S3710t

6,236 

3,249 

Dell Studio One 19

5,532 

2,918 

Sony Vaio JS250J

5,481 

2,899 

Averatec All-in-One

4,549 

2,412 

Lenovo IdeaCentre A600

3,571 

1,967 

If you're as ambivalent about the features differences between the two systems as we are, the Averatec's performance edge over the IdeaCentre A600 should give you firmer ground for picking a favorite. In every benchmark, the Lenovo all-in-one is just a little bit slower than its year-old competitor. We have no illusions about the performance of either system. You can find significantly faster performance from either a decent desktop in the same price range, like HP's Pavilion SlimLine S7310t, or a slightly more expensive all-in-one like the Dell Studio One 19 (albeit with a smaller display). That said, among $749 all-in-ones with 21.5-inch screens, the Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 isn't as fast as the Averatec All-in-One and its faster processor.

We don't want to pile on the Lenovo system, but its design is also a point of contention. You can rightly criticize Averatec for essentially aping the looks of Apple's iMac, but we'd take unoriginality over the IdeaCentre A600 potentially squashing your finger. Thanks to Lenovo cramming most of the internal hardware into the bottom portion of IdeaCentre A600's case, when you tilt the screen its bottom edge moves across the support base of the unit in such a way that it could easily pinch an unwitting finger. The risk was apparent enough that Lenovo put a large red warning sticker next to the pinch zone. We're glad that Lenovo gave us some warning about the danger, but we can't recall any other desktop with a similar design hazard.

The warning label on the base of the A600 indicates the danger to your fingers.

Lenovo does enjoy a screen resolution advantage over Averatec. The IdeaCentre A600 supports resolutions up to 1,920x1,080 pixels, the equivalent of 1080p on an HDTV. Averatec's display only goes as high as 1,680x1,050. Lenovo does also offer a Blu-ray drive on more expensive configurations of the A600. In fact, Lenovo has a lot of extras for this system, including 64-bit Windows, faster processors and 3D cards, large hard drives, and more memory available in other models. Lenovo even has a unique Wiimote-style motion-sensitive remote control available in certain models. With enough of those extras, the A600 suddenly becomes a viable, HD-capable home entertainment system. Our model is a harder sell in that regard given its standard definition DVD drive.

Because of its low price, our $749 A600 is relatively spare. Inputs include a handful of USB 2.0 ports, one mini FireWire 400 jack, analog and digital audio outputs, as well as a media card reader. The Webcam and wireless networking capabilities have become all-in-one staples. Lenovo actually differentiates a bit with bundled facial recognition software that works in tandem with the A600's Webcam as a security device. We found it worked well enough in our admittedly limited testing, but we also suspect most of you are satisfied with the traditional typed password as a PC security measure at home.

In addition to the facial recognition software, Lenovo includes the now-standard bundle of system maintenance applications. Novice PC users will appreciate these more than seasoned veterans. For some reason you also get a media management program that feels completely superfluous next to Vista's standard Media Center software. Finally, the A600 also includes a wired mouse and keyboard set, although the input device options are among the few customizable features for this system. According to Lenovo, it's working on expanding the options available for each configuration on its Web site.

Lenovo also deserves a lot of credit for this system's power consumption. Despite its 22-inch display, the IdeaCentre A600 drew the second least amount of power out of six all-in-ones with various configurations, coming behind only Apple's 20-inch iMac, the clear winner so far. This Lenovo isn't the fastest all-in-one, so it's not performing any remarkable feats of efficiency, but it's also not drawing more than its share of juice.

Juice box

Lenovo IdeaCenter A600
Off (watts)	0.69
Sleep (watts)	1.27
Idle (watts)	23.9
Load (watts)	84.4
Raw (annual kWh)	114.1253
EnergyStar compliant	Yes
Annual energy cost (@$0.1135/kWh)	$12.95

Lenovo's service and support policies hold to the near-universal industry standard of one year of parts and labor accompanied by a 24-7 toll-free tech support number. You can add at-home service and extended warranty coverage when you purchase your system online. You can also find basic drivers and documentation on Lenovo's support site, which is a bit too fragmented for our taste. We were happy to find a manual that documents how to access the internals of the system in order to replace the hard drive, the memory, and the optical drive.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:

Averatec All-in-One
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4600; 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS graphics chip; 320GB, 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Dell Studio One 19
64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E5200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 9400m integrated graphics chip; 320GB, 7,200rpm hard drive

HP Pavilion SlimLine S3710t
64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7300; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9500 GS graphics card; 500GB, 7,200rpm hard drive

Lenovo IdeaCentre A600
32-bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 2.0Ghz Intel Dual Core T4200; 3GB 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA 45 integrated graphics chip; 500GB 7,200rpm Western Digital hard drive

Sony Vaio JS250J
64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E5200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS integrated graphics chip; 500GB, 7,200rpm hard drive