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First Look at ThinkCentre

by Andrew McCaskey
A Small Business Package from Lenovo

It’s unusual for me to take time to evaluate equipment – but Lenovo provided a sample unit and dual monitors and asked for my opinion as a small business owner, so here goes.

This is going to be a series of posts this week, as I put the unit through the paces. It will be my first steps on Windows 7 – so I am looking forward to that as much as the hardware. Over the years, I’ve had machines from HP, Dell, Compaq, Asus, and Apple. Not to mention a dozen or so whitebox or homebrew assemblies, a currently running Alfresco Ubuntu server installation on a Dell 240 tower, and a custom XP audio workstation from Sweetwater. The business side – Quickbooks, NeatReceipts, Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking, and various XP only applications have been relegated to a low end Dell laptop over the past three years or so.

The Lenovo A63 intended for routine tasks, with emphasis on ease of setup and adequate performance. This is not the machine for video editing, but looks like it’s going to be a very good match for the entire business portion of the computer needs here at SDRNews. It will be the first machine I have ever used primarily for business purposes (instead of technical computing) since the Kaypro-2. Since CP/M days, my business computer has always been a generation or two older version of whatever I am using for production.

Maybe I’ll benefit from having some good hardware and monitor space on the business end ?

I’m just to the unboxing stage, and some initial setup. I have not applied power to the unit (that’s on the schedule for tomorrow) , but some initial impressions might be in order:

* The two ThinkVision monitors 22″ (diagonal) provided by Lenovo came with two things that I really like: an extra long 6ft VGA cable and come built in cable harness clips to tame the bundle on the back. If I were putting this package in a receptionist desk right at the front door, it’s a small touch, and helps to neaten up the installation.
* Major kudos to whoever made the decision to put some metal into the feet on these monitors. I’ve had some doubts on the flimsy plastic feet on some of the BigBox specials. These have a solid chunk in place feel.
* There is an alternate DVI input – so that is going to be the way I am cabling these up. With three Apple machines in service, I’m convinced that DVI is the way to go, and a little concerned about the clarity of the display on the one that does not get the DVI connection.
* The installation diagram is a bit cryptic – but I expect that most non-technical admins could figure things out to set up out of the box.

Powerup tomorrow. And the decision point: Do I de-crapify or not ? Hm. Just noted I did not remember any System Disk in the packaging. Will check again and figure out how this is covered. Maybe some restore partition ?

This is getting more interesting.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

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