Lenovo Erazer X315 (90AY000AUS) Desktop Review

Lenovo Erazer X315 Desktop
via Amazon

Lenovo X315 Erazer (90AY000AUS) is a mid-range modern desktop with a cutting-edge design, good quality components, a powerful quad core AMD A8 processor, decent gaming and multimedia performance of Radeon R9 graphics, Dolby audio for immersive sound and generous amounts of memory and hard drive with a room to expand. It is promoted as a good gaming desktop PC but can be used for any heavy photo or video editing as well as any daily tasks for work or entertainment and works quietly despite being powerful.

Lenovo X315 has the quad core AMD A8-7600 processor (4MB cache) at 3.1 GHz speed up to 3.8 GHz with turbo, 8GB DDR3 SDRAM to run or work on a few programs, apps and browsers simultaneously- has the multitasking power, a large 1024 GB hard drive at 7200 rpm rotating speed (high speed storage) plus 8 GB Solid State Drive for quicker start-ups and the 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system. 8GB is not a lot of SSD and it will serve the purpose of fast booting up and instant waking up from sleep mode just fine and you have the massive high speed 1TB storage for all your files anyway. The AMD A8 CPU has the Passmark benchmark score of 5255 and its performance can be compared to the Intel i5-2300 or an Intel i7 930.

Monitor is not included with the X315 but a wired keyboard and a mouse. The graphics card AMD Radeon R9 255 has 2 GB GPU and offers reasonably smooth and fast gaming and media editing performance with a Passmark benchmark score of 1475 (can be compared to GeForce GTX850M and GT 750M) and has the HDMI, VGA, DP and DVI ports. For sound, you’ll find the 7.1 Channel surround sound and Dolby Advanced Audio for better frequency response, increased sound level with the volume maximiser and no sound distortion- completely immersive sound while you are gaming, watching movies or playing music and you will be in control of your sound. The Radeon R9 offers 10%+ frame boost on certain games and has the power consumption of only 10 watts. Great video and audio performance overall at a budget price level and you can play many current games at higher resolutions and settings, reaching up to 60 frames per second. You will have reduced sound loss with the HDMI-out if you choose to go for digital output.

The Erazer X315 has a beautiful futuristic design- a bit like a warrior’s armor with blue LED lighting at the front and you get access to optical drive and ports easily through its single touch cover door and hidden functional front air vents that blend nicely with the design. It weighs 16.5 pounds and has the dimensions of 18.02 x 6.97 x 15.10 inches- this is a desktop PC but not a very large or heavy one- is fairly light and compact for a gaming PC. It comes with a good variety of connectivity ports and options, including a DVD RW optical drive- Optical Disc Drive (ODD) for movies, music and certain software, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, 6 x USB 3.0 ports with an Always-On USB charging at the front (to charge your mobile phone even when the PC is off) and up to ten times faster transfers, an additional slot for another HDD, Bluetooth 4.0, newer technology faster 802.11ac wireless with wider coverage, SD/SDHC/SDXC Memory Card Reader, headphone/mic jack- some at the front for easy and convenient access.

Conclusion: Lenovo Erazer X315 is quite a capable desktop gaming PC without a hefty price tag- it is a mid-range machine that performs well in heavy multimedia editing tasks- very quick without lags or freezing. When you first turn it on, the set-up screen will ask to connect to your Microsoft account and all of your preferences and apps will be placed on it conveniently. There are a couple of customer complaints about the Windows 8 OS- even though the latest 8.1 is better than the previous Windows 8, many people still prefer to use Win 7, but of course this has nothing to do with the X315’s hardware. The power button is criticised by one of the customers- that it doesn’t feel very strong to them and the amount of bloatware you may want to uninstall for snappier performance of the machine, including the McAfee anti-virus you may want to replace with the free version of AVG that you can get online. It does look like an Alienware PC, but without the high price and has some plasticky bits too but has a small casing, works quietly and stays cool, memory and hard drive can be expanded if needed and is a powerful and capable PC overall that offers great value for money.

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