The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 is a smaller duplicate of the 27-inch Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i we reviewed not too long ago. Based mostly on a 24-inch show, this all-in-one PC is a mini dynamo for the worth, at the least so far as computing efficiency is worried. At $900, it prices $350 lower than its bigger 27-inch sibling, and is a step quicker. Each fashions function the identical Intel Core i5-12500H, however our 24-inch check mannequin options twice the RAM of its large sibling. For those who don’t have the area for a large-screen all-in-one PC, the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 delivers glorious bang for the buck, with one essential exception. It suffers from one of many dimmest, dullest shows we’ve examined, making it suited just for darkish dens or basements and a poor alternative for kitchens and different brilliant public areas—an AIO’s pure habitat.
Perform Over Type
Our Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 check unit’s processor is a cell CPU from Intel’s Twelfth Geneneration Alder Lake H sequence. It joins 16GB of RAM, built-in Intel graphics, and a 256GB SSD. We’re excited to see 16GB of RAM on board for the reason that 27-inch mannequin we reviewed presents solely 8GB. On the flip facet, we’re disenchanted by the 256GB SSD; the 27-inch model has a 512GB one. Nowadays, a 256GB boot drive is undersized for any desktop exterior of entry-level PCs.
Our check system (mannequin 24IAH7) is obtainable for $900 at Micro Middle. It’s at the moment out of inventory at Lenovo, changed with a more recent mannequin with a thirteenth Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, which is $1,074 and includes a Core i7-13700H CPU, 16GB of RAM, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and a 512GB SSD. Given the 2 selections, I’d take our check mannequin for $900 and decide up an inexpensive exterior drive if I refill the system’s 512GB SSD.
The IdeaCentre AIO 5 24’s design is extra about perform than kind. You may discover nothing fascinating about its seems to be—it’s destined to be deployed throughout a sea of cubicles extra so than a reception space. At dwelling, it’s higher for a desk in your spare bed room than a public space, a far sight from design-forward machines just like the Apple iMac. Nonetheless, you will discover loads of performance within the bodily design. The IdeaCentre AIO 5 24 sits on a sturdy base that connects to the show through two chrome arms, which kind a loop on the again of the system.
That is an all-in-one that arguably is extra fascinating from the rear than from the entrance. That is as a result of considered from the entrance, it’s a show on prime of what seems to be a dark-gray plastic speaker grille on prime of a dark-gray rectangular base, with no eye-pleasing prospers. The bottom is compact, at solely 11.8 by 6.6 inches, however nonetheless is ready to act as a gradual anchor for the 24-inch show. As we noticed with the 27-inch mannequin, the IdeaCentre AIO 5 24’s base has a slender channel that runs alongside the entrance. It is likely to be a handy spot to retailer a pen (of the ink selection, for the reason that display lacks contact help), however I fear it’ll simply find yourself amassing filth and mud, as a result of I discovered my pen a bit troublesome to dig out of the channel. Final word on the stand: it presents solely tilt adjustment.
And about that alleged speaker grille under the show: It’s truly only a thick bezel with a corrugated sample. The audio system face downward from underneath the show, however their high quality is so poor that it wouldn’t matter in the event that they fired towards your eyes and never the PC’s base. The audio output sounds muddied, with no separation between the excessive and mid tones, and the bass response is tepid at finest.
Not A lot of a View
The show of the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 is 2 steps down from that of the 27-incher we reviewed earlier. Not solely is the panel three inches smaller, but it surely additionally presents solely 1 / 4 of the decision. The 24-inch mannequin has a FHD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) show, as a substitute of the 27-inch unit’s QHD (2,560-by-1,440-pixel) show. The FHD decision is sufficient to produce clear textual content and crisp pictures on the 24-inch panel, nevertheless. Transferring as much as a 27-inch panel, you’ll see a larger profit to a QHD decision.
Whereas it is true that the decision suffices, the brightness of the panel will go away you wanting. It registered a mere 160 nits at peak brightness in our testing. In three years of operating this check, that’s the bottom determine we’ve ever recorded for any all-in-one PC or laptop computer. To verify this horrific consequence, I used a lux meter to measure the brightness of the show. At most brightness, the show measured 225 nits. That’s a bit higher than our official Datacolor SpyderX check, however nonetheless under the PC’s already modest brightness score of 250 nits. Suffice it to say that this show seems to be very dim. Even in a poorly lit workplace, I had the brightness slider at its most. And even then, colours appeared boring and white backgrounds appeared dingy.
Above the show resides a 1080p webcam in a pop-up module. It presents a greater image than you’d get from a 720p digicam, however its picture high quality was nonetheless under common for a 1080p webcam. I discovered the picture to be too darkish and a bit boring. Bumping up the brightness and saturation ranges within the digicam settings helps to a level, but it surely nonetheless didn’t have a look at good as the image from different 1080p webcams. While you aren’t utilizing the webcam, you possibly can push the module down and conceal the digicam to thwart on-line snoopers.
Aside from a side-mounted USB-A port on the left edge, all the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24’s ports are situated in a neat row on the again panel: HDMI-in and -out ports, a pair of USB-C ports, two extra USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The USB-C ports lack Thunderbolt help, and solely one of many USB-A ports helps the newest USB 3.2 Gen 2 commonplace. The opposite is a slower USB 2.0 port. That is a wierd mixture of older (learn: slower) and newer (learn: quicker) USB connectivity. As for audio output, I’d just like the headphone jack to be situated on the facet, reasonably than within the again the place it’s more durable to succeed in, for the reason that poor speaker high quality will possible necessitate exterior audio system or headphones.
Lenovo bundles a wi-fi keyboard and mouse with the system. They’re each useful and preferable to a wired set.
Testing the Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24: Loads of Oomph
As talked about, the Core i5-12500H within the IdeaCentre 5i is a member of Intel’s Twelfth Gen Alder Lake H sequence of 45-watt cell chips. The H sequence is the high-powered chip in Intel’s cell lineup, with the 28-watt P sequence within the center and the environment friendly 15-watt U sequence on the different finish. Cell chips are sometimes meant for laptops and are much less highly effective than their desktop equivalents. The Core i5-12500H options Intel’s newest hybrid structure, with Efficiency and Environment friendly cores; it has 4 P-cores, eight E-cores, and help for a complete of 16 processing threads.
To see how the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24’s efficiency stacks as much as the midrange all-in-one PC competitors, we in contrast its benchmark outcomes to these of a Dell AIO, a pair of Acer AIOs, and the 27-inch model of the IdeaCentre 5i. The final has the identical CPU as our 24-inch check system. In the meantime, the Dell Inspiron 27 All-in-One includes a Twelfth-gen Core i5 from Intel’s environment friendly U sequence of chips, and the Acer Aspire C24 includes a Twelfth-gen U-series Core i3 processor. The Acer Aspire C27 includes a Core i7 CPU from Intel’s earlier eleventh Technology household. The Aspire C27 can be the one system with devoted graphics, boasting a low-end GeForce MX330 GPU. The IdeaCentre AIO 5i 27 and Aspire C24 function solely 8GB of reminiscence, whereas the Inspiron 27 All-in-One and Aspire C27 have twice that quantity.
Productiveness Checks
The primary benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure total efficiency for office-centric duties reminiscent of phrase processing, spreadsheeting, internet shopping, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive check to evaluate the load time and throughput of a PC’s storage drive.
Three benchmarks deal with the CPU, utilizing all obtainable cores and threads, to fee a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a fancy scene, whereas Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates standard 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 check is Puget Programs’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Artistic Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to fee a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of normal 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 5i 24 began its spectacular exhibiting in labs testing by ending first amongst this group on PCMark 10. It edged the equally geared up 27-inch IdeaCentre AIO and simply outpaced the opposite techniques. It additionally took the gold on all however one among our multitasking benchmarks, ending narrowly in second place on Cinebench, behind the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 27.
Graphics Checks
We check Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for machines with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).
We additionally run two exams 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 Automotive Chase exams, 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.
Amongst AIOs with built-in graphics and even the one outlier with a low-end MX330 CPU, the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 was a star. It completed on the prime of the charts on each of our 3DMark exams, and at appreciable margins. Like many PCs with built-in graphics, the IdeaCentre AIO 5i was unable to finish the 1440p GFXBench Aztec Ruins check (solely the Aspire C27 may end it), but it surely acquitted itself effectively on the lower-end GFXBench 1080p Automotive Chase check, averaging 84fps. That’s one body greater than the Acer Aspire C27 and its GeForce MX330 may handle.
Show Checks
We use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a display’s shade saturation—what share of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 shade gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).
We’ve already mentioned the IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24’s record-breaking-in-a-bad-way rating of 160 nits at peak brightness. It wasn’t the worst we’ve seen on our shade gamut or palette measurements, nevertheless, masking 96% of the sRGB, 74% of the Adobe RGB, and 77% of the DCI-P3 shade areas.
Verdict: Doomed by a Dim Show
The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24 is a peppy 24-inch all-in-one. It’s a well-rounded performer for the worth, utilizing its Twelfth Gen Core i5 H sequence CPU and 16GB of RAM to nice impact. It’s a step quicker than competing midrange all-in-one PCs, however to not the purpose that it’s value having to stare on the dimmest of shows. For those who can stretch your funds above $1,000, we advise you measurement as much as the Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 27 as a substitute.
