Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190 Desktop (Black) (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190 meets my requirement. It's slow, compared to what I'm used to, but not any slower than most mainstream mid-level laptops. I'm using it exclusively as an HTPC, hooked up to a Pioneer A/V receiver and an old 60" LG plasma TV. It plays all audio and video files I tried (of course, this depends on the software used). 4K videos works well on my monitor but the TV can't handle it reliably (TV is not 4K). Noise is a non-issue. The VESA mount works well for hiding it behind the monitor/TV. From my router in the living room at the rear of the house to my home office at the front is 55 feet and I'm getting 5-bar WIFI signal strength. If your expectation is realistic, it should work well for you. It's a good HTPC or secondary desktop PC.One serious Issue:At first I could not update to Windows 8.1. It got stuck on downloading loops with each loop lasted about one hour, then it started over without actually downloading anything. I tried several times on different days with the same result, so I decided to forget about it. Then a week later it updated to Windows 8.1 automatically. However, after the update LAN ports and WLAN were dead. Lenovo tech support did not help at all. Since Windows troubleshooting indicated it was having problems with the drivers, I went to Lenovo web site and downloaded the Windows 8.1 LAN and WLAN driver files and installed. Still didn't work. I decided to start clean and uninstalled the drivers, downloaded the Windows 8.0 files and installed. To my delight, LAN and WIFI worked with 8.0 driver files. Out of curiosity, I installed 8.1 files again. And yes LAN and WIFI were dead again! Finally, I uninstalled and reinstalled 8.0 files and left it at that. Bottom line: DO NOT use the Windows 8.1 driver files; you need the 8.0 files.Comments:I don't like or care for included funky remote. I'm using the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 800 and mouse combo, which works very well from a distance of 12 feet. It still works at 14 feet but becomes a little jumpy.It becomes warm to the touch after running for a while. Exhaust feels hot but it's nothing to be alarmed. Again, it's not any worst than some laptops. It needs air circulation, so it's definitely not a good idea to wedge it between books on your bookshelf.

I bought this to replace a half tower PC that sat beside my entertainment center that was used for videos and saved music. Its size caught my attention.The output of the PC goes to a Yamaha receiver/processor which drives the screen (a Panasonic plasma TV) and a set of speakers. The Yamaha also has a cable box and a BR DVD attached to it.After configuring how I use the Lenovo PC (VLC to play videos and a Logitech RF trackball and a RF keyboard), it works well. Its small form factor allowed me to "hide it away" inside of a cabinet that holds all of my components.From my perspective, the Windows 8 standard interface is of no real use to me. So, I use the sorta-like-Windows 7 interface which is distinguished by the lack of a "Start Menu". Fortunately the windows-key-X works.The only oddity about the Lenovo instance of the Windows 8 software is that, if you use the PC and then use other parts of my entertainment system (DVD or Cable or ...), and then return to the PC the sound no longer is present - even though the video is OK. This is not the case with my older attached PC, a Windows 7 box. If you reboot or logout and then login to the Lenovo, the sound is recovered. It seems to depend on just how long the PC is unattended. Letting the PC go to sleep and then waking it up seems to keep the sound from non-functioning. And the Lenovo PC comes out of sleep quite quickly.So, all in all, I am happy with the Lenovo PC in the role for which I bought it.

First thing I did when I got it was wipe windows 8 from the drive. That was a HUGE process though since they lock the drive so I had to do a few hours of research to figure out how to remove the legacy setting in dos, or whatever its called. Once I was able to remove Windows 8 I was able to get a better idea of how the system performs.I use this for 3 things..- Websites- Watching movies- Downloading torrentsI purchased this with that in mind thinking that if I installed a low weight Linux OS the 1.5 GHz Celeron processor would perform adequately but it really hasn't. It can be really slow, videos sometimes skip, takes time to open a browser, etc... I could only imagine how dreadfully slow it would be if I was still using Windows 8!I'm using Ubuntu now so I am going to try switching to XBMC to see if I have better results. If not I can look into upgrading the ram after the holidays.All in all... I love the idea of this little thing.. It's really cool looking and I have it mounted on the back of my 65 inch tv so it makes it even cooler.. Problem is it's not powerful enough for me...If I could go back knowing what I know now about the machine I would have coughed up the extra $100 for the i3 processor..**BTW, This doesn't come with that cool remote/mouse/keyboard, atleast mine didn't. Mine came with a wired keyboard and mouse.*** I would check with the seller before buying if that is a priority.