Lenovo IdeaCentre A720 Windows 8 All-In-One

Performance Summary: Although the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720 didn’t especially impress in our benchmarks, it did prove capable of handling most typical computing tasks. For a system with an Ivy Bridge chip and a Kepler GPU inside, you might expect more on the performance front, but the CPU is 2.5GHz dual-core and the GPU is a mid-range affair.

However, what was more notable about this system was its display’s ability to tilt to facilitate multiple ways of interacting with the machine; that and its good looks, if aesthetics is a thing for you.  With this class of machine, we'd expect many prospective consumers to rate this aspect higher than a traditional desktop.


Bottom line: this is a mostly well-designed machine with some enchanting features and plenty of (more or less) good software that runs on relatively modest hardware, which is rather typical of most AIOs we’ve tested. Granted, you can configure one of these IdeaCentre A720s with a more powerful Intel Core i7-3610QM processor if you like, but that’s about it in terms of meaningful upgrade options.  Still, that should bolster performance nicely.

With a price tag of $1,599, the IdeaCentre A720 is priced probably just a touch on the high side when compared to other options we’ve tested, but even so, Lenovo worked to keep the cost of this machine down. They did this primarily by being conservative with its internal components, no doubt allotting more of the cost to the display that offers features that are more valuable to the average user, such as multitouch capabilities, thinness and image quality. However, that’s more or less a smart move, because most people interested in this PC won’t be too keen on shelling out another couple of benjamins for slightly faster Web browsing and app launching and the ability to get higher framerates in demanding games.

Look, your family will probably love the Lenovo Ideacentre A720; the 27-inch screen is large, it’s great to have all the touch capabilities and the various orientations afforded by the tilting display, and there are games and fun software aplenty for kids from 1 to 92. However, if you’re looking for a machine that can pull double duty as a modest gaming rig, this isn't it. For light duty multimedia work like family video editing, sure no problem.

So go ahead and drop the $1,599 on the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720, so long as you set your expectations accordingly on its intended usage model. But you’ll have to make sure you keep another system up and running if you want to be doing any n00b pwning any time soon.