Lenovo takes off IBM mask

Rich Brown | Feb 24, 2006

Lenovo smartly hung on to the ThinkCentre and ThinkPad desktop and notebook brands when it bought IBM, but the China-based company didn't buy IBM's computer business eight months ago just to maintain the status quo. Where the ThinkCentre and ThinkPad brands have a hold on the corporate market, Lenovo's new 3000-series notebooks and desktops aim to infiltrate the small-business segment with budget configurations and price tags. You won't find fancy dual-core CPUs, wide-screen LCDs or other high-end features in these systems.

The C100 notebook ranges from US$599 (S$973.14) to US$999 (S$1,622.98), which will get you a 15-inch standard-aspect screen in a 2.81kg system that ranges from old Celeron M to Pentium M CPUs and a modest array of other features. The J100 and J105 desktops (Intel- and AMD-based, respectively) come in fixed configurations, cost from US$349 (S$566.99) to US$799 (S$1,298.06) (without monitor) and have CPUs ranging from AMD Sempron and Intel Celeron D to low-end AMD Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 chips. All systems come with a set of security and reliability tools in a package called Lenovo Cares. They're also all designed to evoke the image of their ThinkCentre and ThinkPad forebears but with a decidely less corporate edge to them.
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