I have always had a bit of a love for Lenovo. They successful turned their purchase of IBM into a profitable PC market. Heck, they over took Apple in PC sales in the last few months. On the mobile front they dominate in overseas markets while they still have a struggling point here in the states. That is going to be changing once the Motorola purchase finalizes and they can start moving into the US market a bit easier. Their tablet line is something to keep an eye. I have used the Yoga 8 and Yoga 10 for the last few months and their unique design, exceptional battery and overall performance for the money keeps them in my recommended tablet purchase slot. Lenovo is constantly doing different things with their products and are always bringing new things out that deserve a look. In this review/look, I will be going over the Lenovo N308 AIO (all-in-one) Android based PC.
Whats in the box
- A Lenovo AIO
- A power cable
- A keyboard and mouse
External overview:
Sure, there are instruction manuals all that jazz too, but the hardware is the focus. The N308 is an interesting contraption. The screen comes in at 19.5-inches with a resolution of 1600 x 900. Don’t let the physical numbers throw you off, that is still higher than 720p but just lower than 1080p. The screen is bright at 250-nit and is also multitouch (2 finger only). You don’t have any physical buttons on the front of the N308, rather you have the on screen keys that many current tablet and phone owners are used to using. You will also find a 720p wabcam/front facing camera, a mic and an ambient light sensor.
On the top rear of the device you will find a single power button to turn the screen on or off, as well as long pressing to power the N308 on or off. Just to the left of the power button is where you will find the physical volume up and down key as well.
On the left hand side tucked away in a small cut out you find a series of ports for you added convenience. You will find 3 USB ports, 1 headphone jack, 1 full size SD card slot, a Ethernet port and your power port.
On the rear of the N308 is where you find the stand. Much like the Yoga tablets, but much more heavy duty, the stand rotates down. The N308 can be angled any way you want between 15 to 65 degrees or flat. Of course you can also lay it flat. If you have other plans for the device, you can remove the stand entirely and wall mount it with the Vesa mount holes too.
Internal hardware overview:
Inside the N308 there a view very interesting things. The N308 is powered by a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor at 1.8GHz. Not exactly the slouch in the processing department you might have thought. It also offers 2GB of RAM. Here is where it gets a bit interesting though, the AIO has a 320GB 5400 RPM HDD and 8GB eMMC storage. You can where this would be a pretty powerful media device. To make things a little more mobile, mainly suited more for traveling around your house, it houses an internal battery that can give you up to 3 hours of unplugged usage.
The N308 also offers Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.
The keyboard and mouse:
To continue along with the interesting aspects of the N308, it comes prepackaged with a Lenovo wireless AccuType keyboard and mouse. Both take batteries, but are included. They connect to the N308 via a USB dongle that you plug into one of the 3 USB ports. You don’t need any special software or installs, simply plug in the dongle and you can start using them immediately. The keyboard keys have, what I will call, a shirt pocket design. Where they are flat on the top and sides with slightly rounded bottoms. They are also slight concave for you fingers to rest comfortably in.  The keyboard even has a variety of short cut keys to access the camera, head to the home screen, open up the multitasking window, control the brightness, music playback and more. It is kind of nice to have all that control without having to touch the screen at all.
On the mouse side of things you get a laser mouse that works on plenty of surfaces. The sides are contoured for your thumb and pinky to sit comfortably. The it has the typical left and right clicks along with a center scroll wheel. Of course Android has no use for a left and right click. Either works the same just like a finger touch. One click to open things and hold thee click like you would long press with your finger.
The good:
- The 320GB hard drive offers plenty of storage for movies and photos.
- While one USB port is occupied by the dongle for the Keyboard and Mouse, you still have two additional ports for external thumb drives or hard drives.
- It comes preloaded with all the Google apps and the Play Store, so it is Google certified.
- NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor
- 2GB RAM
- Keyboard and Mouse
- Functional Keyboard shortcuts
- Ethernet port for hardlined internet
The bad:
- 8GB eMMC, limits the number of apps that can be installed and can’t move apps to SD or to the internal HDD
- Certain apps, like G+, can’t be scrolled through with the mouse scroll wheel or arrow keys on the keyboard. (Most likely the apps fault, not Lenovos)
- It is heavy, it weighs just over 10 pounds. Unlike some of their Windows AIO’s, Lenovo didn’t put any sort of handle cut out on the back. It makes carrying it a bit more awkward.
- The BEZEL! It basically has two bezels. The main outer bezel which is where the infrared beams come from to recognize your finger inputs. Then there is the actual bezel on the glass.
- No HDMI or Video out ability
- Android 4.2.2 and no updates as of yet.
- The 2watt speakers are in the rear so having a wall behind it makes it louder. In a quiet environment they are ample to watch a movie and have video calls. Your experience will be better with headphones, a Bluetooth speaker or even a set of good PC speakers thanks to the headphone jack.
How do I actually feel about the AIO?
There are a lot of things to consider on the AIO. For starters does the price tag match the device. If the AIO is priced to high and fails to deliver then we have a monumental problem. The N308 was listed at $350, but is currently out of stock through Lenovos website. Considering the specs above and the goo vs bad, $350 is a pretty good price point, but it is easily targeted to specific sets of users. I found myself using it mostly for streaming movies from Plex at my bedside, idle web browsing and some commander mode on Battlefield 4. Commander mode is pretty slick on a 19.5-inch screen with a mouse on your stomach while the wife is sleeping. My son loved playing Angry birds and other games on the large screen in the living room with it placed on the coffee table. It is so big and heavy that he wouldn’t dare try an pick it up.
I found it particularly useful at my sister in laws wedding. I was able to combine every ones photos from their camera on the spot and put together a slideshow of the event for the reception.
It drew quite the crowd.
I applaud Lenovo for bringing something to market with an affordable price tag that does offer quite a lot of functionality. Had this same AIO had a price tag of $500+ there is no way it would sell. Not unless the Android version was updates, the screen res was pushed up, the eMMC started at 16 or 32GB and it ditched the infrared. All those things would easily put it over the $500 marker. For exactly what it is and exactly what I used it for, it was very useful to have.
I am not sure when they will be coming back in stock, but if you are interested in keeping track of it head over to Lenovo.com.Â
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