Unfortunately, this rarely worked in practice, as I often found that film dialogue was overshadowed by the accompanying background music, making it difficult to hear what was being said. By default, this software is set to ‘Dynamic’ mode, which is supposed to adapt to whatever it thinks is most important at any given moment. They’re loud enough to fill a room, but in order to get the best out of them I had to disable the ‘enhancements’ offered by the pre-installed Dolby Audio software. The built-in speakers are reasonably good, too. Want to buy an external monitor? Here are some of the best However, at £700, it’s hard to complain too much about the screen, as it’s more than adequate for web browsing and basic computing tasks, and it’s vastly superior to the display on the similarly-priced HP Pavilion 23-Q110na all-in-one I reviewed at the end of last year. In reality, it’s about as good as a budget monitor in terms of quality, so photographers will probably want to buy a slightly better external monitor to do their pictures justice. This is a shame, particularly when its colour accuracy covers an impressive 92% of the sRGB colour gamut. This means that images never look their best, as there’s a clear lack of detail and vibrancy. Its white levels are reasonably bright at 220cd/m2, but its black levels and contrast ratio are distinctly below average, as I measured a contrast ratio of just 471:1 and a black level of 0.42cd/m2. It’s fine, but it feels like Lenovo could have spent a little bit more money here to make it truly excellent. The Full HD screen on the Ideacentre 700 is probably its weakest element. Its best feature is the slightly convex design of each key, which makes typing slightly more comfortable. The actual typing response is also a little shallow, but it’s perfectly adequate typing on for long periods of time. Worse, the Fn key is at the bottom-left of the keyboard where Ctrl would normally be, and I constantly found myself pressing Fn instead of Ctrl throughout my testing. The keyboard is oddly laid out, with a tiny Return key and an equally small Backspace button that can make typing a little fiddly. The mouse is perfectly adequate, although with just three buttons and a scroll wheel it’s very basic. The bundled keyboard and mouse set are a mixed bag. On the right edge you’ll also find a pop-out DVD drive, the power button and the source switcher button for the aforementioned HDMI input. Finally, there’s a gigabit Ethernet connector to complement the on-board 802.11ac Wi-Fi chip. Alongside these there are two HDMI connectors, one output for an external monitor and one input so you can turn your Ideacentre into an impromptu screen for a games console or Blu-ray player, for example.

Want something else? Look at our list of the best PCs to buy in 2016įor more permanent peripherals, such as the dongle for the supplied keyboard and mouse, there are a further four USB ports at the rear, two of which are USB3. The likes of Apple could learn a thing or two from the Lenovo’s layout, as I’d much rather have thicker sides with easy-to-reach ports than have to reach around the back every time I want to connect a USB stick or have a look at photos from my camera. It’s loaded with ports, too, including two easily-accessible USB3 connectors on the left-hand side, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headset jack. It would have been great to see some slightly thinner bezels surrounding its 23.8in touchscreen, but there’s plenty of back and forth tilt, so it’s easy to find a good angle regardless of your seating position. It can easily be accomplished by one person and takes little more than two minutes to complete. It also requires a bit of assembly, but this is a simple, tool-less procedure that simply involves attaching the screen to the stand using the supplied thumbscrews. Not everyone will like the matt white finish on the front, but it’s certainly better than glossy black.

The Lenovo Ideacentre 700 is one of the best-looking all-in-ones I’ve reviewed, with sharp corners, angular speaker grilles and a stylish but compact v-shaped stand.

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