Lenovo ThinkCentre A61e review

Storage in the ThinkCentre A61e is limited to say the least. You get an 80GB Hitachi Deskstar hard drive, which is fine for most corporate users with network storage, but rubbish for anyone else. After you've installed all your applications and filled it up with holiday snaps, freeware and DivX movies, you'll have very little space to play with.

Graphics isn't the A61e's forte, but it's not completely inept in this department. It uses an ATI Radeon XD1200 series video card, which apart from it borrowing from main system memory, is nippy enough to play videos, allow basic image and video editing and even the odd game -- so long as it isn't graphically intensive.

Those who are fanatical about saving the environment or reducing their energy bills should note the ThinkCentre A61e is compatible with an optional solar power system. Lenovo recommends the Solar-PowerPAC Euro from www.solar4power.com.

Performance
Performance is where the ThinkCentre falls down slightly. It's one of the slowest desktop PCs we've tested, scoring 3,420 in PCMark 2005. For reference, the Evesham Mini PC Plus scored a similar 3,232, and is a far cuter -- if not necessarily as energy efficient -- example of a small form factor PC. Graphics was also nothing to write home about. It scored 604 in 3DMark 2006, which was in line with our expectations.

One thing that did impress us was the quietness of the PC. Aside from the tiny exhaust fan, which can be overbearing when the PC is doing something intensive, the A61e is a very quiet machine.

Conclusion
It's difficult to recommend the ThinkCentre A61e. Yes, it's energy-efficient, but it's also slow, difficult to upgrade and isn't pretty to look at. It might be a good bet for small to medium businesses, but home users should look elsewhere.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday