Lenovo 24, Core i3-N305, 16GB, 1TB SSD, Cloud Grey

The Lenovo 24 is a budget all-in-one with a surprisingly good 1TB NVMe SSD and a color-accurate 23.8-inch IPS display. The i3-N305 CPU is weak, landing in the 18th percentile, so this is strictly for light productivity and web work. At $800, you're paying for the clean all-in-one form factor rather than raw performance. It's a solid pick for home office users who value simplicity over speed.

The i3-N305 is a low-power chip, and our database puts it in the 18th percentile for CPU performance among all-in-ones. That's not a typo. This thing sits near the bottom of the charts when it comes to raw processing muscle. For everyday tasks like web browsing, document editing, and video calls, it's fine. You won't notice the lack of horsepower until you start pushing it with heavier workloads. But if you're editing 4K video, running virtual machines, or doing anything that actually taxes a CPU, you'll feel the ceiling pretty quickly.

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics lands in the 38th percentile, which is about what you'd expect from a machine that doesn't have a dedicated GPU. It'll handle streaming video, light photo editing, and older or less demanding games at low settings. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM is adequate for multitasking, though it's in the 32nd percentile, meaning most competing AIOs ship with more. The 1TB NVMe SSD is the bright spot, sitting in the 64th percentile for storage. Boot times will be snappy, apps will load fast, and you won't be constantly shuffling files to an external drive.

The competitors in our database are mostly gaming and workstation machines, which makes direct comparisons a bit awkward. The Apple Mac Studio M5 Max is in a completely different universe, both in price and performance. The HP OMEN GT16-0364 and ASUS ROG G700TF are gaming towers with dedicated GPUs that would absolutely embarrass the Lenovo in any benchmark. But they're also towers, not all-in-ones, and they cost significantly more.

The Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 and Acer Nitro N60-180-UB33 are closer in spirit, though still towers with discrete graphics. If you're comparing the Lenovo 24 to other AIOs specifically, the field is thinner. The real question is whether you need the all-in-one form factor. If you do, the Lenovo's storage and display are competitive. If you don't, you can get dramatically more performance for the same money by going with a traditional desktop and a separate monitor.

At $800, the Lenovo 24 is priced like a mid-range AIO but performs like a budget one. The storage and display are the saving graces here. You're getting a 1TB NVMe SSD and a color-accurate IPS panel, which are not things you typically find at this price. But the CPU is a serious bottleneck. The i3-N305 is a low-power chip designed for thin laptops and mini PCs, not a desktop replacement.

When you look at what $800 buys elsewhere, the value proposition gets shaky. You can find traditional desktops with far more powerful CPUs and dedicated GPUs for the same money, though you'd need to add a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The all-in-one form factor carries a premium, and you're paying for the convenience of a single clean unit. Whether that's worth it depends on how much you value desk aesthetics over raw performance.

The Lenovo 24 is one of those machines that makes you realize how far budget all-in-ones have come. You're getting a 23.8-inch FHD IPS display, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and Windows 11 in a package that weighs under 10 pounds. It's aimed squarely at people who want a clean desk setup without the cable spaghetti of a traditional tower, and Lenovo's pricing it around $800 in the US.

Who's this for? Home office workers, students, and anyone who lives in a browser, spreadsheet, or video call. The i3-N305 chip is an 8-core part that turbos to 3.8GHz, which sounds impressive until you realize it's built on Intel's efficiency cores, not the performance cores you'd find in a proper desktop CPU. That's the trade-off here. You get low power draw and near-silent operation, but you're not getting a workstation.

The interesting bit is the storage. A 1TB NVMe SSD in a budget AIO is genuinely nice to see. Most machines at this price point still ship with 256GB or 512GB, so Lenovo's giving you room to actually store things. The display covers 99% sRGB, which matters if you're doing any photo work or just want colors that don't look washed out. It's not a gaming machine, and it's not pretending to be one, but for the right person it could be exactly what the desk needs.

If you do any kind of creative work, software development, or data analysis, skip this. The i3-N305's 18th percentile CPU performance will have you staring at loading screens and progress bars more than you'd like. Video editors, 3D modelers, and anyone running virtual machines should look at a desktop with a proper high-performance processor, like the Dell Tower Plus or a mid-range gaming tower.

Also skip it if you need a bright display. At 250 nits, this screen will wash out in any room with significant natural light. And if you're planning to connect a 4K external monitor, the HDMI 1.4b port caps you at 30Hz, which feels laggy even for basic desktop use. For those scenarios, a traditional desktop with a dedicated monitor is the better call.

For a home office setup where your day consists of email, web apps, spreadsheets, and the occasional video call, the Lenovo 24 is a perfectly reasonable choice. The 1TB SSD means you won't be juggling storage, the display is pleasant to look at, and the whole thing sips power. It's quiet, it's clean, and it'll handle the basics without complaint.

But if you're a student in a technical field, a creative professional, or anyone who needs real processing power, this is not the machine for you. The CPU is simply too weak for demanding workloads. You'd be better served by a mid-range tower with a proper desktop processor, even if it means dealing with more cables. The Lenovo 24 is a niche product for a niche audience, and for that audience, it does the job. Just don't expect it to punch above its weight.