Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC - Interesting Concept, Needs Better Hardware
First seen at CES earlier this year, the Lenovo Horizon Centre comes with a special table that lets it fold flat for family and friends to share content and play games together. We check it out to see if this is the future of family entertainment.
For Family & Friends
Many years ago, Microsoft showed off a touch-enabled tabletop called Surface that could do all sorts of wonderful things, such as play games, recognize objects that were placed on top of it, allow people to collaborate on projects and more. The Surface was targeted at commercial establishments and later got renamed to Pixelsense. Last year, Microsoft and Samsung even put together the Samsung SUR40 the first commercial application of the technology. Unfortunately, it did not quite take off due mostly to high costs and lack of development support.
The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon aims to be the centerpiece of any living room setup, allowing family and friends to share content and play touchscreen-enabled games together.
However, the idea of a touch-enabled tabletop has never died. Last year, Lenovo introduced the IdeaCentre A720, a 27-inch AIO with a stand that let allows the display to be folded flat against the table. This year, Lenovo is following up on the IdeaCentre A720 with the Horizon.
We first saw the new Lenovo Horizon at CES 2013 earlier this year, and we were intrigued by its design and proposition. The Horizon comes with a special stand that allows it to be folded flat, thereby converting it into a table top PC and allows for family and friends to play games together.
To enable this, apart from the special stand, the Horizon also has a large 27-inch touchscreen that is capable of recognizing up to 10 points of touch simultaneously. It also comes with a host of special game accessories and a special Aura UI to take advantage of its touchscreen interface. Can this deliver the winning formula? Let’s find out.
Hardware
Lenovo has yet to update its Horizon with Intel’s latest fourth generation Core processors, so our test unit comes with a dual-core Intel Core i7-3537U processor (2GHz, 4MB L3 cache, HyperThreading). This is low-voltage dual-core processor with a TDP of just 17W and is significantly less powerful than the quad-core Core i7-3610QM that was used in IdeaCentre A720. Why has Lenovo fitted the Horizon with such a low-power processor?
That’s because unlike the IdeaCentre A720, the Horizon has a built-in battery which Lenovo says can power the system for up to two hours. This, according to Lenovo, is to facilitate group gaming sessions, allowing users to easily gather around the Horizon to play games without fear of getting caught within the confines of a power outlet. Speaking of which, this also means that the Horizon can function as a giant-sized tablet. But at over 8kg and with its massive 27-inch display, it is unlikely the Horizon is going to replace your iPad or Nexus tablet anytime soon.
Elsewhere, the IdeaCentre has 8GB of RAM and basic discrete graphics in the form of NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 620M GPU with 2GB of framebuffer. The GeForce GT 620M has 96 CUDA cores and is based on NVIDIA’s older Fermi architecture. To be specific, it is actually a die-shrunk version of the GeForce GT 540M. Storage is provided for in the form of a 1TB hard disk drive.
Design & Features
The 27-inch touchscreen display is bright and responsive to our inputs. Unfortunately, it is rather glossy and catches reflections easily.
The IdeaCentre Horizon’s 27-inch Full HD display is bright and was very responsive and accurate to our touch inputs. Furthermore, thanks to the large display, it is very easy to use our fingers to navigate. However, the Horizon has a glossy type screen and it catches reflections very easily.
All I/O ports and jacks are located to the right.
The Horizon offers rather basic I/O connectivity - just two USB 3.0 ports, a memory card reader, headphones and microphones jacks and a HDMI input so that it can double up as an external display to other devices (such as game consoles). Considering that the bundled wireless keyboard and mouse combo takes up a single USB port, Lenovo should have done better and provided more USB ports. It also packs an integrated battery, presumably for better portability, since this means you do not have to shut it down every time you want to move for group activities. That said, during our battery test, we found that the Horizon could last roughly 2 hours and 7 minutes, which is actually decent for a device with a 27-inch display.
Though basic, the kickstand at least allows for a pretty wide angle of tilt.
While the old IdeaCentre A720 has a specially-engineered stand that allowed the display to be folded flat for group activities, the Horizon is much simply designed and only has a simple kickstand. Therefore, when used as an AIO, there’s not much room for adjustment.
However, it makes up for this somewhat with its Multi-mode table cart. Users can attach the Horizon onto the cart for easy transportation and the cart is adjustable for both tilt and height, so users can fold the Horizon completely flat for gaming and other group activities.
The multi-mode cart lets users quickly and easily move the Horizon around the house. It also lets it fold flat for group activities.
The Horizon’s 27-inch Full HD display is bright and we found it to be very responsive and accurate to our touch inputs. Furthermore, thanks to the large display, it is very easy to use our fingers to navigate. However, the Horizon has a glossy screen and it catches reflections very easily, which can be rather distracting.
The Aura Interface
According to Lenovo’s literature, the Horizon is a "multi-user PC that reinvents together time", and to do so, it is bundled with Lenovo’s Aura interface. Aura is activated when you tilt the Horizon flat and it is specially designed to allow two or more people to simultaneously use the Horizon.
The Aura interface is quite fun to use. Multiple images can be opened and tossed about the screen to share amongst users. For the geeks among you, yes we were tossing around our PCMark test result windows with our colleagues in this screenshot, heh.
Aura allows user to get quick access to media content such as photos, movies, music, games and apps and it is quite fun to use, though the novelty of it wears off after sometime. For example, opening photos creates little thumbnails that can be resized by pitching or expanding. It can also be 'tossed' across the screen to other users, which is quite cool at first.
There is also the Lenovo App Store which offers more specially designed apps and games for users.
More apps can be downloaded or purchased from the Lenovo App Store. There is perennial favorites Angry Birds and other games and apps such as Fruit Ninja and Opera web browser.
For more information of the Aura interface usage experience and the gaming accessories provided by the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC, do check out our hands-on article from earlier this year.
Test Setup
To evaluate the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon, we will be putting it through our usual benchmarks. The full list is below. As for comparison, we will be including results from the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720, ASUS ET2411INITI and the recently reviewed ASUS Transformer AIO. For the newer benchmarks such as 3DMark 2013 and PCMark 8, we were not able to recall the other AIOs for retesting so we will be including results from comparable systems that were recently reviewed.
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General Computing Benchmarks (PCMark 8 & PCMark 7)
Since PCMark 8 is a relatively new benchmark, we have not had the chance to recall the older AIOs for testing, so we will be including results from other comparable products that we have tested recently such as the latest MacBook Air and Toshiba Satellite P50 notebook.
Bearing in mind its specifications, the Horizon’s scores on PCMark 8 on the "Home", "Creative", "Work" and "Storage" workloads were pretty decent. On a whole, it was able to match the latest MacBook Air 2013, losing out only when it came to the "Storage" workload because of its 1TB HDD - the MacBook Air has a super fast PCIe-based SSD. Needless to say, it was no match for mobile powerhouses such as the Aftershock XG13 and the new 14-inch Razer Blade.
On PCMark 7, the Horizon managed an overall score of 2925, which surprisingly puts it slightly ahead of the more powerful IdeaCentre A720. Examining the breakdown of scores, we can see that the reason behind this was the Horizon’s good showing on the “Entertainment” and “Computation” workloads. However, it trailed against other AIOs such as the ASUS ET2411INTI and Transformer.
Graphics Benchmarks (3DMark 2013, 3DMark 11 & Far Cry 2)
As we have mentioned earlier, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M is a pretty dated and entry-level GPU, that is based on NVIDIA’s last generation Fermi architecture. And it shows. Looking at the results of the Horizon in 3DMark 2013, it seems that its performance is only about on a par with Intel’s HD Graphics 5000 integrated GPU (such as that found in the new Apple MacBook Air). Its graphics performance also could not match against the IdeaCentre A720 and ASUS ET2411INTI, both of which have the slightly more powerful GeForce GT 630M GPU. The ASUS Transformer AIO is clearly the best performing AIO thanks to its new GeForce GT 730M GPU, which is based off NVIDIA’s latest Kepler architecture. On Far Cry 2, it was over 60% faster than the Horizon.
In terms of practical usage, we also felt that the Horizon could do with more graphics horsepower. Although the bundled touchscreen games were playable, it felt sluggish and there were moments when we noticed that frame rates dipped quite severely. In all, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M really does not do the Horizon any favors, and we are perplexed as to why it was the GPU of choice in the first place - even the slightly more capable GeForce GT 630M (same core configuration, higher clock speeds) would have been more welcomed.
Mismatched Hardware
The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is an interesting product that serves the dual functions of a desktop AIO and a multi-user tablet. Unfortunately, it does so with some compromises.
Looking at its performance in our benchmarks, it is clear the Horizon is underpowered when compared to some of the more recent desktop AIOs we have reviewed. This is not surprising when you recall that it is powered by a low-voltage dual-core processor, whereas its rivals are all sporting quad-core processors with higher clock speeds.
On top of this, the Horizon is also equipped with a rather dated GeForce GT 620M GPU, while its rivals are powered either by the slightly faster GeForce GT 630M or the newer Kepler-based GeForce GT 730M. It doesn’t help also that the GPU is called on to drive a large 27-inch Full-HD display. The best way to summarize the Horizon is that it feels like a big car that has been mismatched with a small engine.
Obviously, the decision to opt for a low-voltage processor and entry-level GPU is to give the Horizon decent battery life, but we cannot help but feel that it is a compromise that has gone too far. The result is that with its current specifications, the Horizon does not function ideally in its dual roles. It’s much too slow compared to its desktop AIOs rivals and even as multi-user table PC, the user experience is not ideal as games sometimes felt sluggish.
The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is interesting, but it's letdown by poor specs and a high asking price.
The Horizon is also not helped by its steep asking price, which stands at an eye-watering S$2899 - this includes the multi-mode table cart and all game accessories. Although this is comparable to the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720, the A720 has more powerful hardware and better entertainment features including a Blu-ray player and integrated TV tuner. It is also able to fold flat for gaming and sharing content and loses out only in terms of portability - it does not have a built-in battery nor mobile table cart.
At the end of the day, the Horizon tries to be too many things at once and ends up being too much of a compromise. However, if you are still keen on the concept of a desktop AIO that can be converted into a family gaming device, the ASUS Transformer AIO is worth considering. Its main problem lies with the size of the screen (too small for a desktop, too large for a tablet), but if you can get around that, it offers better all-round performance and has a much lower asking price.
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