The ThinkCentre A55 models provide impressive multitasking performance. And with a host of unique ThinkVantage Technologies and design features, this competitively priced desktop... more
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A review by saraharcher on Lenovo ThinkCentre A55 9265 May 8th, 2007
Author's product rating:
Speed
Average
Design
Satisfactory
Manufacturer Support
Good
Ease of use
Very easy
Value For Money
Very poor
Advantages:
The case dosn't look too bad
Disadvantages:
Addequate but outdated CPU
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
My review of this PC is from a slightly different perspective. I have purchased this as a second PC. The slightly different perspective is in the fact that I purchased this second hand, although it is only three weeks old. A friend of mine purchased the PC new for £400 and found himself very disappointed with his choice. Having more money than sense, he sold me the PC for an extremely knocked down price of £250.
For the price original price of £400 paid I can quite understand his disappointment and the reasons for which I will outline further.
I will start with the CPU or better know as the processor. The A55 9265 is fitted with an Intel Pentium 4 - 541. Whilst this is not a bad CPU in its own right, it is far from being up to date by other manufactures standards. Rated at 2.8Ghz, the standard for most even those price significantly lower than Lenovo is 3Ghz upwards. Quite how the ThinkCentre A55 hopes to even try to compete with other manufacturers offering 3-4Ghz CPU's with a price tag of around £50 less is somewhat of a mystery. Having said that, as my mate has proven with flying colours.."there is one born every minute"
The memory installed is on a par with most budget PC's and is supplied with 512Mb DDR II SDRAM. Thankfully memory these days is a relatively cheap upgrade option.
The hard drive installed again is somewhat below acceptable for the price tag. The A55 is supplied with an 80Gb hard drive. Although this size of drive is acceptable, for £400 you would expect something around 100 -120Gb in size.
The graphics card is on-board as is the norm with all budget PC's. The graphics memory is shared with the PC's RAM and is adjustable via the PC's Bios settings. The graphics memory can be increased up to 128Mb, however baring in mind that the PC is only supplied with 512Mb to start with, this would not be a very wise move.
The sound card is also on board, again the same as you would expect for a budget price PC. The card is your average bog standard AC'97 with the quality of something you would get from off E-bay for a fiver. In terms of performance, it does a job and provides sound, but that's about the extent of it.
Fitted as standard is a CD writer / DVD ROM drive. This allows you to record CD's but will only play back DVD. Once again for £400 I would have expected a DVD writer to have been installed. Admittedly some manufacturers like Acer don't fit DVD writers either at this price level. At least Acer can fall back on their brand name as being well known and established in the market place. Somehow I don't think despite the fact it is an IBM product, the Lenovo name carries the same type of distinction to carry this off.
The operating system installed is Windows XP which again is the norm for this priced end of the market, although machines are slowly starting to creep though into the budget market now with Vista installed. Interestingly enough, the PC is certified as Vista compatible. With the basic spec of the machine I think it would seriously struggle to cope.
The only slightly impressive feature of this PC is the six USB ports that are provided. It's surprising how many USB ports you tend to use, as virtually every type of device now uses this type of interface. The norm on budget PC's seems to be around four.
I would say that the price I paid of £250, got me a reasonable PC for the money. Had I paid the shop price of £400, like my friend I would feel extremely short changed. It would appear that IBM have applied the same disastrous logic to the ThinkCentre PC range that was applied to the Thinkpad range of laptops. IBM assumed with their Thinkpad range that people would indeed pay well over the odds for something resembling a house brick just because it was an IBM. It didn't work with Thinkpad, and I can hardly see it working with Thinkcentre either, even more so because the IBM name has all but been disappeared in favour of the Lenovo name.
If you are looking at buying one of these as new, I would say most definitely don't bother!!! You can get a lot more PC for a lot less money if you shop around. In my opinion the asking price for this PC is is about £100 over-priced. My rating of this PC is based on the price as new.
Advantages: very good processor with unique vast features. Disadvantages: the flat screen looks too fragile.
...Well the lenovo think center computer has proved to be a bit different. Some features actually made me to purchase the product and are features like the administrator password, power on password, booting without mouse and key board, hard drive I/O control, usb control, serial port I/O control, boss Sequence control and diskette I/O control. These are the features that really made me to splash at about £250.60 on it.
The lenovo thinkcentre A55 9265 ... ...protocol.
I like the lenovo PC when it comes to sound production, graphic production and game functions. I normally play games on it although I still prefer playing most of my games in consoles. Not only that, the game graphic production it produces is fantastic with sound because of the advanced graphic and sound card present.
In terms of selling places, I bought mine at PC world. In terms of price, I bought at the price of £250.60 with postage ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Fast speed processer, can run windows vista Disadvantages: The design
Quit fast and ready with the protection you need, also this computer is ready for windows for windows vista. so you can update it later on,
This computer if runing a 2.8ghz processer so you can easy run a few games if your into that, Also this computer will be able to run windows vista.
These computer are easy to update the drivers so it is easy to make this computer faster, but this does not need to be updated for another few years,
This computer ...
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Speed
Design
Manufacturer Support
Ease of use
Value For Money
helpful
23.07.2007
Destop PC Review ofLenovo ThinkCentre A55 9265by
konk22
Advantages: Value for money and good for first timers. Disadvantages: The processer
This desktop pc does exactly what it says on the tin.It is reliable,hard working,easy too upgrade if needs must.The best thing about this pc is the price of the machine though for this sort of money you normally expect a slow lumbering old thing but this pc does the job fine and can cope with alot of programs before it starts too run short on you and you have too upgrade it.I have currently haver this model and the only let down i have encountered ... ...faster processer and would increase the potential of the other components in the pc but altogether for the price you will pay it is perfect for a first time user of a pc for starting up on.The set up isn't at all complicated too,it is clearly coloured where each connection goes. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: EASY TO USE AND MANUFACTURE SUPPORT Disadvantages: START UP IS SLOW
ITS A VERY BEAUTIFUL COMPUTER. NICELY DESIDNED. MANUFACTURING SUPPORT IS ALMOST BROUGHT TO EXCELLENCE. EASY TO USE, NOT CONFUSIN AT ALL.ITS DESIGNED IN SUCH A WAT THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE HARD TO USE. AMOUNT OF MONEY IS AL SO GOOD BECAUSE THEY ARE SELLING IT IN A VERY CHEAP PRICE.NICELY DESIGNED AND EXCELLENT FOR HOME USE. THE COMBO DRIVE WORKS PERFECTY. BUT THERE ARE ALSO BAD POINTS. THE START UP IS A LITTLE SLOW. A GREAT COMPUTER WILL ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Speed
Design
Manufacturer Support
Ease of use
Value For Money
somewhat helpful
06.03.2008
Quick review of Lenovo ThinkCentre A55 9265 - Pentium D 915 2.8 GHz Review ofLenovo ThinkCentre A55 9265by
typeriter318
This is an average pc and it does the job if you are looking for a home browsing desktop, it has some good features.
Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Digital Video Standard: Digital Visual Interface (DVI)
Audio output
Type: Sound card - integrated
Compliant Standards: SoundMAX, SoundMAX, High Definition Audio, High Definition Audio, AC '97, High Definition Audio
Keyboard
Keyboard Name: Preferred Pro Full-size, Preferred Pro USB
Interface: PS/2, USB
Mouse
Technology: Optical
Interface: USB
Features: Scroll
Manufacturer's product description
The ThinkCentre A55 models provide impressive multitasking performance. And with a host of unique ThinkVantage Technologies and design features, this competitively priced desktop combines robust security with outstanding quality to deliver exceptional overall value.
Operating system / software
OS Provided: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista Business ( preloaded ), Microsoft Windows XP Professional ( preloaded ), Microsoft Windows Vista Business, DOS licence
OS Certified: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional , IBM PC DOS, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, PC DOS, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Software: Adobe Acrobat Reader, PC Doctor, Google Toolbar, ThinkVantage Client Security Software, ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery, Lotus Notes Stand-alone Client licence, Lotus SmartSuite Millennium licence, ThinkVantage Productivity Center, ThinkVantage System Update, Symantec Client Security (with 90 days of updates) (OEM), Diskeeper Lite, Google Desktop, Google Picasa, Microsoft Office Ready
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
