Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z Review

Which is prettier, a one-piece or a two-piece? The answer might be different in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, but in IT management it's clearly the former: An all-in-one PC and LCD monitor a la Apple's iMac is far more elegant than a conventional desktop plus monitor -- which, if you add peripherals such as a webcam, microphone, and speakers, can easily become an unwieldy four- or five-piece setup with a spaghetti plateful of cables connecting the parts.

The drawback is that stylish, space-saving one-piece PCs have been restricted to the consumer rather than business segment, except for some executive-status-symbol models like the Dell Studio One, but that's changing -- affordable all-in-ones are on the verge of becoming a full-fledged trend.

Earlier this month HardwareCentral checked out the HP Pro All-in-One MS218, an office-ready version of an HP Pavilion consumer combo. And now Lenovo steps up with the ThinkCentre A70z, an all-in-one office desktop available at CDW and PC Connection for $729.

The matte black A70z resembles a large digital picture frame, or maybe Darth Vader's shaving mirror: It's a big-bezeled 19-inch monitor, some 2.4 inches thick, with an easel or prop behind that stands it at an adjustable tilt angle. Counting the easel but not counting the keyboard and mouse, it takes up some 18.5 by 7.5 inches of desk space and stands 14 inches tall. A protruding handle or handgrip at the rear lets you carry the 18-pound computer, slightly awkwardly, from room to room.

A webcam and mic are built in above the display and a pair of tolerable (not much bass, but not too tinny) speakers below it. A DVD±RW drive is on the system's left side, while three USB 2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks, plus brightness controls for the monitor, are at the right.

Energy Independence

Side-mounting isn't as convenient as front-mounting; we found ourselves standing up and craning our neck to see the USB ports and optical drive, but you can stay seated and use them by feel with a little fumbling (bonus points for the slight recess that guides your finger to the drive's eject button). We also found ourselves wishing Lenovo had provided a flash memory card slot as notebook vendors do and as HP did with the MS218.

Three more USB ports, an Ethernet port, and an old-fashioned serial port are at the rear, along with the connector for the ThinkCentre's power cord. That cord doesn't lead to a notebook-style external brick as it does on the HP and most other small-form-factor desktops we've seen; the Lenovo's power supply is built in.

The Energy Star 5.0-compliant supply draws 130 watts -- low enough, Lenovo claims, to cut your power bill by $65 per year compared to a three-year-old PC and CRT without power management tools. Watt-watchers can fine-tune the A70z's energy consumption and assorted power-saving options via a supplied software utility.

We preferred to sacrifice thrift and crank up the display brightness from the default 50 to 80 or 90 percent for the sake of white rather than grayish backgrounds. That aside, we deem the screen most satisfactory: The 19-inch flat panel offers 1,440 by 900 resolution (a 16:10 aspect ratio, not the lately fashionable, HD video-oriented 16:9), with bright colors, sharp text, and fine lines.

The lack of height adjustment for the display didn't bother us unduly. If it bothers you, Lenovo offers a monitor stand that attaches to the rear of the A70z ($59 at PC Connection). Alternatively, you can opt for a swiveling radial arm ($169 ditto), or even hang the system on a wall using a standard VESA mount.

You can also opt for a cordless keyboard and mouse, as our test unit did, in lieu of the standard USB desk set. This hikes the ThinkCentre's list price to $797 (if that seems steep, Logitech and Microsoft offer many cordless keyboard and mouse combos starting at $40), but is an almost irresistible addition to the system's glamour factor. It makes the one-piece PC also just a one-cable (the power cable) PC if you combine cordless peripherals with a WiFi router that lets you use the Lenovo's built-in 802.11b/g/n wireless instead of plugging in Ethernet.

Lenovo's cordless keyboard has a firm, slightly rattly typing feel and a row of multimedia buttons -- volume/mute, play/pause, next/previous track, plus browser and calculator -- above the function keys. The cordless mouse is a mini -- a notebook rather than full-sized mouse, which struck us as a bit odd for desktop duty, but moved and scrolled smoothly.

Perky Performance

The A70z skimps with 2GB instead of 4GB of standard DDR2 RAM, and its Intel G41 Express chipset's integrated GMA X4500 graphics are nothing to write home about (or to play games on). But its 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard disk is a solid performer, and its CPU, though not one of Intel's newest, has considerable clout -- a Core 2 Duo E7500, a 2.93GHz dual-core with a 1066MHz front-side bus and 3MB of Level 2 cache.

The combination yielded a modest 3DMark06 benchmark score of 863, but a respectable PCMark Vantage number of 4,535, and rendered Cinebench R10's sample scene in just over two and a half minutes -- half the time of the HP Pro All-in-One. Office applications felt sure and snappy, and image editing was pain-free (though you shouldn't mistake the ThinkCentre for a serious CAD or video-editing workstation).

Along with Windows 7 Professional (32-bit), Lenovo supplies a set of simple system and security monitors and backup tools, plus the trial versions of Norton Internet Security and Microsoft Office. The A70z boots up in a fairly prompt 35 seconds; a cooling fan gave a loud whoosh at startup but was silent the rest of the time we used the system.

Speaking of cool, one-piece desktops are -- they make good sense from a space- and energy-saving perspective, and they make employees feel like they rate something more stylish than a generic PC and monitor. With its larger screen and faster performance, the ThinkCentre A70z surpasses the HP MS218 to become our new favorite in the category.