Lenovo IdeaCentre 510A 15L Desktop Computer, Intel Core i3-8100 Processor, 4GB DDR4, 1TB HDD + 16GB Intel Optane Memory, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Windows 10, 90HV000NUS, Black

It works well

This is a pretty standard fare computer, well conceived for an office, for internet, for a family PC. I've been building computers for almost 30 years and I've come to appreciate these workhorses.First thing's first: it's inexpensive. It's half the price is a 'gamer' video card like an RTX 2080, an upgrade I want for my main desktop. My main desktop has a huge case, lots of neat cooling solutions, pretty ram chips, but for 99% of the stuff that computer does, this one can do just as well for a small fraction of the money.And though it's inexpensive, it isn't that hard to upgrade. We'll get to that later.The tower is relatively compact (for a desktop tower), and runs rather quietly. I think it looks great in that slate grey, with a shiny and obvious power button (that will also work for 'sleep' mode by default). The keyboard is a chiclet style that I liked, and the mouse is very basic and cheap.I plugged it into a spare LCD monitor and fired it up, and it worked great. Took several minutes for Windows to configure itself the first time, and then to download Chrome, but within 20 minutes I was surfing the internet and watching Netflix without any trouble at all. I tried a DVD because this thing comes with a DVD drive and that worked fine as well.The computer is sluggish to fire up from 'shutdown', but not too bad from a sleep state. My main concern is that if surfing modern websites or running any kind of game the RAM did indeed become a major limiting factor in performance. Even if you're not planning on playing games, more memory would be an upgrade. Like many other reviewers have said, an SSD would also be a very noticeable upgrade.Let's talk about the different kinds of 'memory'. The 4 GB of RAM is what's being used right now when the computer is on, like its short term memory. The 1TB and 16 gb of Optane memory are the long term memory, the hard drive. So parts of Windows or Google Chrome or a movie are read from the hard drive to the RAM, but if you run out of RAM, the computer uses the hard drive for really slow short term memory.You easily install 4 GB of DDR4 ram for thirty bucks. You can easily install a smaller SSD for another thirty bucks. Both upgrades would produce a very obvious improvement in performance and are very easy (the internet is full of videos on how to do it). If you didn't do this immediately, that's OK. I got used to waiting a few seconds for things to load and had no problems surfing the internet, paying my bills, and watching movies on this computer. As this is a budget PC, I can see someone getting this for a student or for their own work, and then in six months springing for the two extra components.Connectivity is easy. I had no problems whatsoever with the wifi or bluetooth, and Windows does a good job 'just working' these days.I was able to play older games with this. It's low on RAM so that's a major limitation. I highly recommend Dead Space for this computer, just because of the way that particular game is optimized it seems to work very nicely on budget PCs. Stay away from Grand Theft Auto and other open world games. FTL, Team Fortress 2, Hotline Miami all were fun for me and I forgot I was running them on 4 gb of RAM.Though I had no problems with the motherboard or power supply, I know from years of being cheap with computers that you shouldn't cram in an older high powered graphics card, as the other components in here are all quite power efficient. The CPU has an integrated graphics processor that does a pretty good job, but the computer's space will accommodate a low wattage upgrade.So that's four things to upgrade. The ram, the SSD, the mouse and maybe a graphics card. Upgrade none of them and you'll be OK. Upgrade those four things, in that order, every few months and you'll probably be using this computer happily for several years.bottom line, this is a really really nice computer for such a low price. It's very easy for reviewers to forget that, and compare this to our nicer, more expensive computers. If you just need a computer, this is a great purchase that can be improved for low cost. Despite its limitations I can't help but see that low price tag and give this five stars.

The system is slow for a new unit and right after the 30 day return window it blue screened me and wouldn’t allow any system restore, despite numerous attempts from both amazon and Lenovo tech support. Lenovo wants me to reinstall the operating system and email me the instructions. That’s be fine, IF I HAD A COMPUTER to read the email.

I bought this for myself, I'm not a big gamer but my kids are. So, I had a lot of the upgrades sitting around from building and upgrading the kids PC's. I upgraded to 16 GB Ram, 1 TB SSD and this GPU; ZOTAC Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 LP 4GB GDDR5 128-bit Gaming Graphics Card, Super Compact, Low-Profile, ZT-T16500H-10LI had to purchase the GPU since the case is small and psu limits it. I bench marked it on 3Dmark and it scored pretty good. I can play most games on steam, it was getting 120 FPS on CSGO, 120 FPS on world of Warcraft, 88 FPS on Civilization 6. I know those are not AAA games but it gives you an idea of what it can do. If the case and PSU were bigger I could have gone with a better GPU but then why not just build a PC at that point.

This is a decent entry level system at a bargain basement price, as long as you are willing to make a couple of upgrades. Without them, you will really be struggling to make Windows 10 work. First of all, this model should never ship with it's current 4GB of RAM, especially considering how cheap memory is at the moment. 8 GB is the minimum amount you need to keep Windows 10 running without having to dip into the disk cache, which would slow performance to a crawl. Buy an extra 4 GB of RAM and you will never regret it.The second upgrade takes a bit more work, but will increase system speed dramatically. Toss the existing drive that comes with this unit and replace with literally ANY solid state drive (SSD). Even the worst, cheapest SSD you can find will be far, far faster than the included mechanical drive. You can use the 1TB drive that comes with this as a seconday drive or as an external back-up drive. Just don't use it as the primary drive with Windows 10 installed on it or performance drops to levels that most people will not be able to tolerate. I haven't used a mechanical hard drive as the primary drive in a computer for 5+ years and I have built literally hundreds of PCs and servers. There is absolutely no good reason whatsoever to use them as a primary partition in this day and age.Once you make the above changes this system will fly. Adding RAM is so easy that a child could do it. Cloning the existing drive to a new SSD is a bit more complex of a task, but there are plenty of primers on how to do this on YouTube and elsewhere. Upgrade kits with appropriate software are also available at stores like Staples or right here on Amazon. Replacing the existing mechanical drive with an SSD will not only make the system much, much faster but will make it consume less power, extend it's lifespan by years and will make the system much quiter by comparison as there will be no more moving parts. Corsair makes a very simple kit for upgrading from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD that sells here on Amazon for around $20. Just search for the product CSSD-UPGRADEKIT. Buy it, along with any sized SSD you wish, and in about an hour you can transfer the existing Windows operating system and have screaming performance.