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Lenovo introduced five new PC products for the enterprise June 10, including what officials say is the industry’s first 23-inch all-in-one desktop for businesses.
Lenovo entered the enterprise AIO space in late 2009, but the products were “more mainstream and lacked some features that enterprise customers really needed,” Bill Dominici, product manager for ThinkCentre and ThinkVision monitors, told eWEEK.
That’s not the case anymore. The new M90z is smaller and more energy-efficient – both features that enterprises are looking for today, said Dominici, pointing to additional “high-level features” that make the M90z a true fit for corporations.
These include Intel Core i5 and i3 processors, DDR3 memory, a choice of hard drives or a solid-state drive, a full 23-inch HD panel with dual-display support and the option for touch sensitivity, which is complemented by features in Microsoft’s Windows 7.
“We predict there will soon be more business software on the market supporting touch,” said Dominici.
Additional enterprise lures include support for VOIP (voice over IP), digital array microphones and a 2-megapixel Webcam with a dedicated on-off switch – a more elegant solution than the piece of tape or Post-it note many workers use to assure they’re not inadvertently on camera, and a popular fix with the education market. A display port on the back enables users to plug in a projector or additional monitor, and there’s also a VGA-in port.
The M90z can be wall mounted or used on an adjustable arm – popular in the health care field – or with a kickstand. It’s also EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Gold and Energy Star certified, made of nearly 42 percent post-consumer content – the equivalent of 65 plastic bottles – has a brightness control that can save up to $8 a year on energy bills, and is reportedly overall efficient enough to save a company $54 in energy costs, compared to a typical desktop.
Now available through Lenovo business partners at a starting price of $899, the M90z will also arrive on the Lenovo Website later in June.
Accompanying the M90z on its debut are the L2330x Wide and ThinkVision L2321x Wide monitors. The L2230x combines a built-in port replicator with a 21.5-inch monitor. It’s a perfect companion for an ultra-portable notebook, or laptops without a docking solution, said Dominici. “All you have to do when you sit down at your desk is plug in a USB. Ultraportables are growing [in popularity] and this reduces clutter on the desk.” Compared to an 11-inch laptop, it also reportedly boosts a user’s viewing space by 200 percent.
The ThinkVision L2321x is a 23-inch panel with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 and dual-video inputs, making it the equivalent of two monitors in one. Its “duo” monitor feature enables users to split the screen – viewing, for example, a PowerPoint on one side while running an application on the other. This capability is said to be popular in vertical markets such as energy, call centers and the financial industry, as well as those moving from legacy solutions to wider form factors.
Both monitors will arrive in mid-July, priced at $259 and $279, respectively.
Finally, rounding out the Lenovo announcement are the ThinkStation C20 and C20x, compact dual-CPU workstations. According to Ming Xie, a Lenovo ThinkStation product manager, “Finance markets want to do more, run more models, but real estate isn’t getting any bigger.” While the competition’s answer is that it can’t be done, given the difficulty of cooling two CPUs, “Lenovo came out with a revolutionary design, and we’re up to 46 percent smaller than the competition,” Xie told eWEEK.
Where “the competition” can fit 10 workstations on a rack, Xie said Lenovo can now fit 14 – “and that’s not even mentioning hardware advantages in terms of performance.” And where the competition offers 9 DIMM slots, added Xie, Lenovo delivers 12 on the C20x.
Each offers a choice of Intel Xeon 5600 Series processors and up to 96GB of DDR3 (double-data rate) memory. The C20 offers up to two Nvidia FX4800 class graphics chips, and the C20x has Native SAS support. Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with Lenovo Enhanced Experiences is preloaded, though Windows XP and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 are supported. The only 80 Plus Bronze Certified workstations, they also boast a 90-percent efficiency rating.
Both will arrive in mid-June, the C20 starting at $1,199 and the C20x at a yet-to-be-disclosed price.
“While more people are using mobile devices,” said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president of Lenovo’s Think Product Group, in a statement, “there are lots of environments where desktop products simply make sense.”