Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180

Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180 Review

The Lenovo Q180 nettop stays out of your way with a quiet, compact design, but its anemic Atom processor prevents it from living up to its media-center aspirations.The rise of the netbook brought along with it the nettop, a small computer using an Intel Atom processor that could fit in a desk drawer. Products like the Acer Aspire Revo, Asus Eee Box and Lenovo Q110 promised a new era of thin-and-light desktop computing that would be less expensive and less obtrusive than the big beige boxes of old.The idea sounded great, but the nettop never took off. Lenovo is one of the only companies that remains committed to the concept. Its latest effort has taken the form of the Lenovo Q180, a desktop that claims to be the world's smallest fully functional PC.It features one of Intel's most modern Atom processors, the dual-core D2700, which runs at 2.13 GHz. Also included is AMD's Radeon HD 6450A discrete graphics chip. Both of these components are standard – upgraded models only include more memory and a larger hard drive. Our review unit came with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. It also arrived with an MSRP of $449 on Lenovo's website, but you can usually find the product for under $400.Lenovo intends the Q180 to serve as a small general-purpose desktop, a media center or both.