At $999, with a midrange Intel Core i5 chip, a discrete graphics card, and a stylized case, the Lenovo IdeaCentre K330 clearly has Gateway's FX line in mind as its competition. A unique, semi-useful CPU speed control mechanism helps the Lenovo stand out, and its Blu-ray drive gives an entertainment advantage over the Gateway. We wouldn't recommend the Lenovo to use for upgrading, or if you want the best application performance at this price, but it would make an affordable, well-rounded desktop for media consumption.
Lenovo IdeaCentre K330 77273GU
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Compare the black-and-dark-gray IdeaCentre K330 and its orange accents with the orange and black Gateway FX series and the source of Lenovo's inspiration for this PC will become immediately clear. Neither desktop can claim to offer universal aesthetic appeal, although Lenovo's design is perhaps more traditional, since it lacks the Gateway's carapace-like plastic plates. The Lenovo does have a gaudy flame design behind a CPU speed control switch that lights up on the front case, but a button lets you turn the light off, hiding the flame entirely.
The switch is unique to the IdeaCentre K330, and while its premise is interesting, we're not sure it's that useful. The switch features three CPU speed settings: turbo, auto, and cool mode. Sure enough, when you set it to cool mode, the quad core Core i5 2500 chip holds steady at about 1.5GHz. Dial it up to turbo, and the CPU clock speed locks in at 3.3GHz.
We're ambivalent about the speed control dial. Intel's Core i5 chips regulate their speed automatically thanks to their built in Turbo Boost technology, which adjusts CPU frequency and the number of active cores depending on application demands. Turbo Boost handles this task well enough that makes the Lenovo's speed dial rather useless. Aside from adding some cost to the IdeaCentre K330, we can't say the speed dial does any real harm.