Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z

Full Review Price: Rs 35,800

The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z is a space-saving all-in-one business desktop PC that offers good performance and makes a strong case for an office PC. It comes with a 19-inch matte screen and some useful business software.

Design & Looks
The ThinkCentre A70z desktop has a picture-frame like compact design and stand. It dresses itself similar to Lenovo’s Thinkpad laptops -- the X301 or T400s, for example -- with a drab, grayish black but tough exterior. The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z doesn’t have even an inch of gloss on its compact, all-in-one unit -- unlike the Dell Vostro 320 all-in-one business desktop PC. The A70z desktop’s power supply is built into the unit -- you just need to connect a power cord, no heavy power adapter to worry about. This helps avoid wire clutter on the desk, adding to the ThinkCentre A70z’s compact footprint.

Lenovo's proprietary ThinkVantage technologies suite helps manage the ThinkCentre A70z better.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z all-in-one desktop PC is very well built -- better than the Dell Vostro 320 -- with a solid steel stand support at the back. Connectivity ports are placed around the desktop’s edge and on the back panel, while the ThinkCentre A70z’s onboard speaker is situated beneath the screen’s bezel. Heat vents are situated near the top of the back panel. While the Dell Vostro 320 is slightly more mainstream in terms of overall look and design, the ThinkCentre A70z has a strict enterprise look and feel about it.

Usability
The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z has a 19-inch matte display supporting a widescreen 1440x900 pixel resolution. The ThinkCentre A70z’s display is ideal for reading text -- typical usage in an office scenario. The display’s tilt is adjustable by the stand at the back and it offers very good viewing angles. A 1.3MP webcam and webcam recessed on the ThinkCentre A70z’s top screen bezel is good enough for video conferencing.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z comes with a very good pair of keyboard and mouse. The keyboard has raised keys that are curved at top and are very good for typing. The USB-connected optical mouse isn’t too small, isn’t too big -- it’s just the right size and good for working with the ThinkCentre A70z desktop. No bloatware here, all useful stuff.

Hardware Specs & Features
The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z comes with an Intel Pentium DualCore E5400 2.7-GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and onboard Intel GMA X4500 graphics. Good basic hardware building blocks, but the ThinkCentre A70z has a slower processor compared to the Dell Vostro 320 -- it has an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8-GHz processor -- but larger hard drive. The ThinkCentre A70z desktop PC comes with 32-bit Windows 7 Professional operating system.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z all-in-one desktop PC has six USB ports, DVD writer, headphone and microphone jacks, Gigabit Ethernet, and a serial connector. Disappointingly, the Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z desktop doesn’t come with a VGA port, so you can’t connect it to an external monitor. However, an SD card slot is also missing on the Lenovo all-in-one desktop -- a feature as common as a USB port on current desktops and laptops. The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z supports wireless Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity. Its case design prevents you from easily upgrading the ThinkCentre A70z’s internal hardware -- RAM or hard drive.

Lenovo also bundles its proprietary ThinkVantage technologies suite, which helps managing the ThinkCentre A70z better. Among other things, ThinkVantage technologies has an efficient power manager, one-click update service, recovery partition and disk tool, and system diagnostics utility.

Performance
The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z performs in line with its internal hardware. Its WorldBench 6 score of 88 is well below Dell Vostro 320’s 107, but for a regular office desktop it’s quite adequate. Multitasking with regular office productivity suites, browsing the Web, and watching the occasional movie is handled well by the ThinkCentre A70z all-in-one desktop PC.

It played both 720p and 1080p HD video files smoothly, no problems whatsoever. And its good onboard speakers -- situated below the screen -- means you can pop in the occasional DVD and watch a movie comfortably.

Bottom Line

The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z is a rugged business all-in-one desktop PC with a compact design. It has a nice matte screen, offers good performance, features, and comes with useful proprietary software for a price of Rs. 35,800.
Between the Dell Vostro 320 and Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z, buy the former for its slightly better performance, features and more mainstream appeal. But if you want a business all-in-one desktop with enterprise looks, better build quality and useful business software, consider the Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z.