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The Lenovo IdeaCentre 300s ($329.99) is a basic budget desktop that accomplishes simple tasks with little flair. The small tower is useful for saving some space on your desk, there’s a good selection of ports, and it’s affordable. As configured, though, it’s not especially quick, and offers few upgrade options, which is particularly notable considering the 500GB storage capacity is less than you’ll find in other small-tower desktops. The Shuttle XPC Nano ($349.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) offers even less storage, but has a much smaller form factor, costs $50 less, and includes roughly the same port offerings despite the size difference.
Design and Features
While the Lenovo IdeaCentre 300s may not be the size of the tiny Shuttle XPC Nano, it’s still a very small desktop, measuring 11.3 by 3.5 by 12.75 inches (HWD). The Nano is 1.14-inch-tall box, so it definitely has the 300s beat for space-saving ability, but it’s not a traditional desktop tower. The Acer Aspire ATC-605-UB11 ($1,168.96 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (15 by 7 by 16.5 inches) and the Acer Revo One (RL85-UR45) ($249.99 at Acer)(Opens in a new window) (6 by 4.25 by 4.25 inches) are much more similar in shape and size, with the latter being particularly compact. If you’d consider an all-in-one desktop as an alternative, the HP 20-c010 is an affordable option that measures 14.6 by 18.4 by 7.2 inches. The desktop’s whole body is black, and with the exception of the glossy plastic front panel, is made of aluminum. The front is slightly angular as opposed to all 90-degree corners, which adds just a little flair to what is otherwise a standard, black rectangle. The 300s comes with a basic keyboard and mouse, both of which are wired, black, and plastic.
Connectivity options aren’t terribly varied, but there are plenty of ports. The front panel holds a USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, a mic jack, an SD card slot, and a DVD±RW drive. On the back, there are two more USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and both a VGA-out port and VGA-in port, should you need to connect to older monitors. Considering the size difference with the Nano, you’d perhaps hope for more ports: The miniature box manages two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, HDMI, an SD card slot, and a Mini DisplayPort connector. You may not necessarily need much more than what either system offers, but there is space for a few more video output options on the 300s, and it and the Nano are almost identical.
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Where the extra size does help is storage: The 300s features a 500GB 7,200rpm hard drive, while the Nano only includes a 32GB solid-state drive. The Aspire ATC-605-UB11 and HP 20-c010 include 1TB hard drives, as does the the Revo (in addition to some integrated network storage options). The Aspire is $600, so the added storage makes sense, but since the Revo is even cheaper and smaller than the 300s, 500GB is less excusable.
Accessing the internals is simple—just undo two screws on the rear to free the right side panel. There’s not much room in our unit as configured, with one free RAM slot representing more or less the entirety of expansion options. Both the Aspire and the Revo have open bays for additional storage, which is especially noteworthy for the latter given its size. Even the tiny Nano has a free 2.5-inch internal storage bay, making a lack of upgrade options for a system with relatively low storage already a real mark against the 300s. For wireless connectivty, the 300s supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Lenovo supports the desktop with a limited one-year warranty.
Performance
The 300s is equipped with a 3.3GHz Intel Pentium G3260 processor, 4GB of memory, and integrated Intel HD Graphics. It couldn’t run the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test due to an unknown conflict with the software, but that doesn’t necessarily imply anything about its speed, and it was generally a moderately quick performer. In regards to the multimedia tests, it finished Handbrake in 2 minutes, 55 seconds, and Photoshop in 4:44, and scored 245 points on CineBench. These are all better results than the Nano’s (7:06 Handbrake, 10:04 Photoshop, 118 CineBench) and slightly ahead of the Revo overall (3:11 Handbrake, 5:08 Photoshop, 248 CineBench), while the more expensive Apsire was much faster (1:47 Handbrake, 3:45 Photoshop, 428 CineBench). The HP 20-c010 was well behind these desktops on all three tests.
See How We Test Desktops
No, 3D and gaming performance are not a budget desktop’s strong suit. But even given the inherent limitations, the 300s was still disappointing. It’s less powerful all around than the competition. The desktop couldn’t crack 10 frames per second (fps) on Heaven and Valley at 720p with medium settings enabled while the Aspire was just under 20fps. It was also way behind on the 3DMark Cloud Gate and Fire Strike Extreme tests. Though we don’t recommend any of these desktops for gaming, the Aspire (and, to a lesser degree, the Revo) are more capable of running some low-end titles with the graphics options dialed down.
Conclusion
The Lenovo IdeaCentre 300s may be inexpensive, but it doesn’t represent one of the better values out there. As configured, it’s not particularly good in any one area, offering limited storage, few upgrade options, and performance that falls on the slower end of the category. You’re getting a small, but not tiny, form factor that would better justify slower performance or less impressive specs, as is the case with the Shuttle XPC Nano. For more standard towers, the small-form-factor Revo is arguably better for less money, and the Aspire is a superior desktop, though you’ll have to pay for that improvement. The Nano remains our Editors’ Choice for budget desktops due to its low price, super-compact design, I/O port offerings, and expansion options.
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The Lenovo IdeaCentre 300s is a basic budget desktop that offers a simple set of features and specs at a reasonable price, but doesn’t excel in any particular area.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-ideacentre-300s