Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i (32ILL19) Desktop Review: An Elegant All-in-One That Runs Into Some Trouble

7.2/ 10
SCORE

Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i (32ILL19)

Pros

• Big, bright display
• Strong single-core performance
• Solid graphics from RTX 4050

Cons

• More expensive than non-AIO setups
• Effectively zero upgrade options
• Some weird glitches

The Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i (32ILL19) may be a good AIO desktop computer, but it’s pricey. It has a big, bright display offering a colorful 4K picture and has surprisingly potent hardware — and it runs quietly. Even the audio system is good with its quad-speaker setup. But it’s expensive with an as-tested $2,809 price tag. Viewing all these elements with that price in mind, it’s more expensive than the sum of its parts, and its performance ends up lagging behind what you should expect for the money.

The performance also doesn’t outshine competent gaming laptops that cost less than half what this system does. Other mini PCs, like the truly tiny M4 Mac Mini or Minisforum AI X1 Pro can simply trounce this system where CPU performance is concerned. That latter system also has a ton of ports and upgrade options; this system doesn’t. While laptops may have smaller displays, and those mini PCs lack displays altogether, the price of any of them leaves so much extra budget headroom that you could still buy one of the best monitors to go with them for similar money as the 32i. And while the 32i does have a good screen, it doesn’t stack up against the best.

To be fair, there is an elegance to having everything packed into one machine like the Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i (32ILL19), but compared with pairing a laptop or mini PC with a standalone monitor, there’s an extreme impracticality to it for which you’re charged a premium.

At the time of writing, the Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i appeared to be available only as configured here. Lenovo’s documentation for the system suggested some additional options, though. Namely, there should also be options for a trimmed-down Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor, Intel Arc 140V Graphics and 16GB of memory.

Peppy but embattled

The Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i is a reasonably potent machine. The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V inside isn’t the fastest option, but it’s a low-power chip with a decent number of cores and solid single-core performance. It keeps the system feeling zippy while also giving it the strength to power through some midweight workloads. With its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics chip, the Yoga also gets a huge leg up on the integrated graphics you’ll generally find in competing all-in-ones, mini PCs and thin-and-light laptops. To wit, in the 3DMark test, it performed more like a gaming laptop than a typical AIO. It ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, with the Highest graphics presets, at an average of 96 frames per second. With two big vents on the sides, it managed that performance while remaining whisper-quiet.

It’s not the most robust system, though — not even against others that would have you questioning the point of an AIO PC. For one thing, Apple’s $799 M4 Mac Mini mops the floor with Lenovo in terms of CPU performance. But not everyone will switch to Mac just for the performance. On the Windows side, a handful of cheaper machines still offer superior speed.

For example, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in the aforementioned $1,229 Minisforum AI X1 Pro is a close match in single-core performance and vastly more powerful for multicore workloads. Its integrated GPU, however, is no match for the Lenovo’s RTX 4050. It’s a similar story with the $1,799 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti, except that computer sneaks in a 140-watt RTX 4070 mobile GPU that blows away the 32i, often doubling its graphics performance.

Then there are laptops like the Asus TUF Gaming A14 and HP Omen Transcend 14, both of which are much cheaper than the Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i and pack in RTX 4060 GPUs. Unsurprisingly, that higher-tier GPU gives both laptops a leg up with gaming frame rates.

Compared with the mini desktops, the Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i does have a big 4K display to justify at least some of its expense. Even there, it kind of fumbles, though. At over $1,000 more than the Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti’s original price (it’s even cheaper now), I’d expect one hell of a monitor to come with the 32i. Sure, it’s big. Sure, it’s 4K. It’s not even bad, offering 625 nits peak brightness and 96% DCI-P3 coverage with max dE1976 of 1.82. It’s a decent IPS display that I’d be satisfied with for $300. But with just a 60Hz refresh rate and such a modest contrast of 1,360:1, it doesn’t stack up with what you can get separately for the price difference compared to other, non-AIO options.

There were also a few issues. The Bluetooth connection was a bit of a nuisance. The system came with a basic wireless mouse and keyboard, but they would intermittently disconnect from the computer, despite still being on. There didn’t seem to be a way to wake them up and get back in action short of restarting Bluetooth in Windows settings and restarting the two peripherals. The issue occurred with third-party Bluetooth devices as well, so the computer’s Bluetooth module or drivers are likely to blame.

I also encountered an odd, though temporary, graphical glitch. Many elements of the screen would go blurry, as though dropping in resolution. There were also other graphics-related issues, but they were seemingly solved by disabling hardware acceleration in the Chrome browser, despite occurring even outside of my Chrome use. Checking later, it was still gone even if I re-enabled hardware acceleration. Basically, it seems like this PC could use a firmware update.

On the positive side, the speakers can pump out a lot of volume, and they generally sound pretty decent. However, when there’s a loud sound coming through the speakers at their higher volume levels, they distort with some chassis resonance, making for unpleasant noise. This seems to have some interaction with the Dolby Atmos settings. Adjusting them from their Dynamic default to either Off or the Warm Music settings helped out considerably. In those settings, the speakers impressed again with their volume and surprisingly impactful bass.

That said, I do wish Lenovo had gone bigger with the sound, given the overall size offered by the 32-inch screen. The two 5-watt woofers and two 2-watt tweeters are situated fairly close to each other. Two of the speakers are in the base, and two are in the back of the display where the stand connects. This doesn’t create much space between them horizontally for distinct stereo sound.

It could almost pass for a monitor

From the look of the Lenovo Yoga AIO 32i, you’d almost think it was just a monitor. Most of the space it occupies is dedicated to the 32-inch display, which is about an inch thick. It’s fairly pretty too, standing on a circular base with a big metal ring holding up the display (it looks a bit like a giant paperclip).

That base houses the computer hardware, though sadly, it’s too svelte to hold the power supply. So instead, the system relies on a large, 300-watt power brick. The base has feet to raise it up, keeping it from sliding around and creating a bit of clearance for air intake. Heat is exhausted through two grilles on either side. Lenovo had to flatten the back edge of the otherwise circular base to fit the ports. These include a 10Gbps USB-C port and a Thunderbolt 4-compatible USB-C port, plus two 10Gbps USB-A ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI 2.1 port (for video out, not in) and a power jack. This is a little disappointing, as it’s effectively the I/O of a laptop. It’s also a little hard to reach since it’s all facing backward, and there’s a 32-inch monitor in the way.

As stylish as the display stand is, it’s not the most capable. The monitor can tilt up and down a few degrees, but that’s it. There’s no height adjustment, rotation or pivot, which is another series of knocks against it as a worthy alternative to a standalone monitor paired with a mini PC or laptop. The base, at least, has the interesting added detail of having a 15-watt wireless charging pad built into it.

Above the screen is a 5-megapixel webcam with IR sensors for facial recognition. This has a pretty wide field of view, making it easy to get in the frame. However, the webcam only appears to Windows as a 1080p camera, and the video was fairly grainy. There’s also a physical switch on the side of the base to deactivate the webcam, which is a nice touch. The two microphones paired with the camera aren’t so hot; my voice sounded like it was recorded through a cardboard box.

Another drawback to the 32i’s AIO design is that it has the upgradability of recent laptops, which is to say it’s nearly non-existent. There’s just one M.2 slot for storage, and it’s already filled. The memory is soldered in, so there’s no upgrading that. When the system stops being enough for future computing needs, you’ll have to replace the whole thing, even if the display, speakers, camera and mics remain viable. That is the price you pay for having everything packed into one elegant package. I just wish that price wasn’t so high to boot.