Advantages: The case dosn't look too bad Disadvantages: Addequate but outdated CPU
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 ...
Advantages: Slimline, Well Featured, Looks Good Disadvantages: No Firewire, Not thought out properly
ThinkCentre... Think Smarter
IBM?s range of workstations have always been backed up with a long history, after all shouldn?t IBM be the experts, they did ?invent? the PC after all! IBM?s ThinkCentre range represents IBM?s mid-range business workstations, enough power and multimedia capabilities to run the top end office and productivity, whilst keeping costs down to make the systems as affordable as possible. A hidden but equally important part of the ThinkCentres resides inside the computer and installed on the hard drives, these discrete design decisions and software packages that are shipped with the machines. I have recently installed 86 IBM ThinkCentre S50?s at work; this review is my attempt to distil my experiences into words.
WHATS IN THE BOX?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the box arrives at your door, or in my case three ...
Intel GMA 3100 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0, ATI Radeon HD 2400XT, ATI Radeon HD 2400PRO
Max Allocated RAM Size
256 MB
Digital Video Standard
Digital Visual Interface (DVI)
HDCP compatible
Yes
Max Monitors Supported
2
Video Memory
256 MB, 128 MB
Audio output
Type
Sound card - integrated
Compliant Standards
High Definition Audio
Keyboard
Keyboard Name
Preferred Pro USB, Preferred Pro Full-size
Interface
USB
Mouse
Technology
Optical
Interface
USB
Features
Scroll
Operating system / software
OS Provided
Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Microsoft Windows Vista Business / XP Professional downgrade, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft Windows Vista
Microsoft Office Ready
Includes a preinstalled image of select 2007 Microsoft Office suites. Purchase a Medialess License Kit (MLK) to activate the software.
OS Certified
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft Windows Vista Business (32/64 bits), Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Software
PC Doctor, ThinkVantage System Migration Assistant, ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery, ThinkVantage Client Security, Lotus Notes Stand-alone Client licence, Lotus SmartSuite Millennium licence, ThinkVantage Productivity Center, ThinkVantage System Update, Norton Internet Security 2007 (90 days subscription), Windows XP Professional recovery DVD, ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery, Windows Anytime Upgrade
The ThinkCentre M57 desktops provide customers the latest technologies that they need for the most productive computing experience along with the solutions that IT managers need to manage and to secure a fleet of hundreds or thousands of PCs.
