Go Green! Seems to be the mantra this days and every manufacture is doling out power efficient products. Lenevo’s A61e is based on AMD’s DTS form factor-the fast of it’s kind, consisting on their power optimized processor, chipset and graphics.
The A series of desktops from Lenovo are oriented towards business and hence don’t expect this PC to churn out big numbers-it is not meant too. The A61e is designed to consume less space-an important aspect for most businesses. We found the dimensions very compact for full fledged pc-great for Media center PCs. Despite the diminutive form factor the pc does not get hot-thanks to good ventilation and low power components.
The configuration offers a decent balance between performance and power consumption. AMDs Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 (power optimized) processor along with ATIs X1200 onboard graphics power the PCs critical system. The motherboard is custom built, and hence we could not trace its manufacturer. Other goodies include 1 GB of memory, 160 GB hard drive, DVD writer and Gigabit Ethernet. The PC does not run directly off the mains, rather it requires the provided power adapter similar to a laptop. The tight fit of components means, upgradeability is limited.However,the system admin will appreciate the tool-case,which opens by sliding a signal latch.
Along with the A61e, Lenovo has bundled the familiar black keyboard and optical mouse. The A61e can be ordered without any display. However,our test unit had their 20-inch LCD monitor.During our tests the LCD fared well and delivered good tonal accuracy. The LCD is fit for any office related work, i.e. word processing, spreadsheets, browsing etc.
When we upgraded the memory to 2GB the PC shifted its gear and delivered reasonable results. With all the eye candy on,vista requires at least 2GB for other applications to work.With Windows XP, we had no problem with the stock configurations. The performance was satisfying.We tried Ubuntu 7.10.The PC did boot,but with minor glitches such as wrong screen resolution,no sound, etc, which needed some fixing.
The A61e without the monitor is sweetly priced at $395.

Specifications:
AMD Athlon 64×2, 1 GB DDRII, 160 GB HDD, DVD-RW, X1200 onboard graphics, Keyboard, optical mouse, Gigabit Ethernet and PC DOS.

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