BIOS: Technology Means Business

On February 23, 2006, Lenovo unveiled its first-ever Lenovo-branded PCs to be offered worldwide. Finally dismissing the ThinkPad moniker business users cherished for years, the Lenovo 3000 product family is the culmination of work from researchers, scientists and product design teams from China, Japan and the US combined. So we’re sorry to say that we’re disappointed.

The Lenovo 3000 product line features several new desktop and laptop models with the latest processor technologies in new chassis, but boy are they dull looking - even though IBM’s ThinkPads were aimed at the same market, they offered a unique sense of class and superior build quality which was the hallmark of business computing. Lenovo’s first laptop offering looks like any other generic far-Eastern box-shifting system.

But it’s not all lost. The Lenovo 3000 product line features built-in tools designed to help reduce IT expenses in small-business environments where every pound counts. These tools let small business owners concentrate on their businesses - rather than their IT - with virus recovery, simplified network connectivity, and automatic updates. In fact, if you’ve ever owned a ThinkPad you’ll feel right at home.

Lenovo 3000 PCs, including the 3000 C100 laptop reviewed here, also feature a unique suite of easy-to-use Lenovo Care productivity tools that help make owning and operating a PC a little less worry-free for small business and individual users. With Lenovo’s excellent Care tools, PC maintenance and service guesswork is replaced by powerful autonomic tools to help make the PCs more self-reliant.

For example, instead of manually locating and applying critical system updates, the Lenovo 3000 C100 identifies and updates its own Lenovo software to take that arduous task off of the user. In addition, Lenovo Care tools can help users streamline maintenance tasks to keep PCs running like ‘new’.

For instance, we really liked the one-button system recovery to help you diagnose, get help, and recover systems from catastrophic software failures caused by today’s viruses and malware. The automatic updates that download and install critical updates on a user-configured schedule to help keep the system operating at peak performance makes managing the laptop a breeze, and intuitive connectivity tools make hooking up to wired or wireless networks a breeze.

The Lenovo 3000 C100 is encased in a functional but ugly charcoal grey chassis. Thankfully the silver exterior adds a much needed sleekness and the matching silver buttons above the keyboard help to break up the monotony. Having said that, we’re perplexed why Lenovo used horrible orange plastic parts for the optical drive and PC Card releases - matching silver would have been far more pleasing on the eyes.

Weighing in at 2.8kg, the Lenovo 3000 C100 offers impressive connectivity features on select models, such as integrated 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN, Bluetooth, 10/100 Ethernet, and V.92 modem. Multimedia capabilities are modest (there are no dedicated media controls), but you do get a pair of average-sounding stereo speakers with an integrated microphone for playing and recording audio and an integrated combo or DVD recordable drive. The system also incorporates a 3-in-1 (MS, MS Pro, SD, MMC) memory card reader for downloading digital pictures, four USB ports, 4-pin FireWire and S-Video slots.

The speakers are placed on the front left and right sides of the laptop to provide optimal range of sound, whether listening to presentations at work or music at home, and the Lenovo 3000 C100 is equipped with a 2-button touchpad that is sensitive to finger movement and pressure, allowing you to navigate with ease through Web sites and applications. Unfortunately, the ThinkPad’s excellent (and patented) TrackPoint is no more, so you only have the choice of one on-board pointing device.

The C Series includes an Intel 915 GM Chipset with choice of either Pentium M or Celeron M processors. Select models, such as our review unit, also feature Intel’s Centrino mobile technology. Mobile users will benefit from an 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery offering up to an impressive 5 hours of battery life. Other core components include up to 2GB of DDR2 533MHz memory, 80GB hard disk drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900, and a lacklustre 15-inch XGA display (1024x768 pixels) - the C100 definitely isn’t a mobile multimedia workstation!

Solid performance for the value- and service-conscious professional, Lenovo’s C100 delivers adequate performance (it’ll struggle with Windows Vista mind, which requires lots of memory, dedicated graphics, and a dual-core processor) in a reliable and well-rounded portable system. The downside is that its screen resolution is low, build quality is middling (the chassis and keyboard in particular are not a patch on ThinkPads), its design is bulky, and you can get a dual-core system for not a lot more financial outlay.

Nevertheless, for a starting price of just £599, it might just be the perfect system for your number-crunching workforce. But with the advent of the Intel Core Duo processors and more powerful offerings from Dell and HP, you may want to keep your options open. And if you do need more multimedia jazz, maybe you should look at the company’s N Series. [6.5]

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