Office duties only
Given the description on Lenovo’s website of the X1 as “thin as a laptop, as powerful as a desktop PC”, my hopes were high. Not surprisingly, it isn’t quite as impressive as Lenovo makes it sound. The internals come straight from Intel’s mobile range, with even the most powerful model featuring only the dual-core, 2.6GHz Core i7-6600U. A score of 54 in our benchmarks means it looks underpowered when compared with the Asus Zen AiO, which powered to 110 thanks to a full desktop chip.
Still, the ThinkCentre is quicker than the Broadwell-based 4K iMac 21.7in, whose 1.6GHz Core i5-5250U scored 42, and the X1 feels snappy and responsive in general use – something that’s no doubt helped along by our review unit’s 256GB Samsung SSD. It isn’t the quickest flash drive on the planet, but it’s a darn sight better than a mechanical hard disk. And if you can’t spring for the SSD, it’s good to see that even the cheapest ThinkCentre X1 comes equipped with a hybrid drive as standard, so responsiveness shouldn’t suffer too badly if you trade down.
Verdict
The Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 is a curious mixture of the good, the great and the downright frustrating. I like the design, but the keyboard and mouse are a letdown; it’s responsive, but all-out performance is limited compared with Asus’s super-fast Zen AiO; and the screen, while offering impressive glare reduction, isn’t good enough for colour-critical work.
But that doesn’t make this all-in-one PC a write-off. Despite all the business-friendly features – the inclusion of Windows 10 Pro, easy manageability courtesy of vPro versions of Intel’s Core processors, a Trusted Platform Module for extra-secure encryption – Lenovo has kept the price reasonable. It’s highly configurable, too, if you want to shave money off by choosing a lesser hard disk, say.
Is that enough to earn it a recommendation? Not quite. But it puts the ThinkCentre X1 into a different league than both the Asus Zen AiO and its more beautiful, but less functional, iMac rivals. JONATHAN BRAY Dual-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6600U processor 8GB RAM Intel HD Graphics 520 256GB SSD 23.8in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS screen 802.11ac Wi-Fi (2 x 2 MIMO antenna) Bluetooth 4 1080p webcam DisplayPort 5 x USB 3 SD card slot Windows 10 Pro 3yr on-site warranty 570 x 240 x 452mm (WDH, with stand) 5kg