Grammer nazi reporting to duty!

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Thanks very much, I really do appreciate it -- but perhaps you could email me directly to keep such threads clear for "real" discussion in future.

You edited my post as I was deleting the extra info eh

E-mail sent. Oh and I sent an empty one by mistake, sorry.

Nice hardware, but really ugly.

Just make it silver or white, and a simple shape, can't go wrong! Instead black distorted shapes with unnecessary details that won't appeal to anyone with a sense of style - the type of person attracted to Apple designs.

You don't need to be a design genius, just make it silver or white and simple!

Hi Mike,

A good review -- maybe the competition will put a little pressure on Apple to lower their prices? The new 24" iMac is ~$250-950 (depending on processor and HD) more than the Lenovo 21.5", and the new 20" $50 less (though it is 2GB/320GB).

I use a 1 year old 24" iMac for my main computer, and I think it is (was*) every bit as quite as the one you tested three years ago. (Was it that long ago?!)

* The reason I said my iMac was as quiet is that it is now slightly louder than it was before: I had to replace the Western Digital 320GB HD with a 500GB Samsung F3 (which has slightly louder seeks) and upgrading to Snow Leopard means that the fan is used a little bit more than it was.

But, it is still a very quiet machine, most of the time. Maybe Apple can send you a sample of the latest? The shiny black screen would be annoying, except it is also just about the best quality display I have ever seen.

I'd probably be able to live with the Lenovo, 'cept for Vista...

Thanks Neil. Yup, iMac pricing is still pretty steep. Consider the coming Asus ET2203T, which has similar specs/features, a touch-screen (?) and they're talking about maybe $1000.
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=3lDDGLp7Xa1NiCzy


Interesting that the Samsung seeks are louder.

Two things I have to say --
1) Some of Apple's commercials are funny but most are ridiculous, esp now. They totally misrepresent Vista, imo.
2) True that out of the box, Vista is not the cleanest experience, but a "power user" can easily make it run pretty smoothly. My wife's laptop is Vista; she had some trouble early on but I spent an hour make it run leaner and it's been rock-steady for 2 years now. And invariably, all Vista equipped PCs now come with free upgrades to Windows 7.

De gustibus non est disputandum but I happen to think it looks better than the giant lip on the iMacs, especially the early white ones. You don't see the distorted shapes from the front when using it, just a rectangle gradually sloping out of view.

When Apple gets the technology to put everything behind the screen with no lip, things might be different.

For sheer looks, the new Asus "EeeTops" are sharp...



...but glossy as usual.

Yea of all the all-in-one designs i like the Asus ones best, although this Lenovo certainly isnt ugly IMO.

Thanks for the review MikeC.

Croddie: Perhaps the weird design was intentional? I can imagine the heat has more room to move around and be expelled easier.

The use of the laptop CPU put me in mind of the XPM days when you could just drop the laptop chip in a desktop mobo with a the heatsink of your choice

The keyboard looks great I thought, unlike Lenovo to get the usability wrong here.

croddie, the problem is aesthetics will always be subjective. The point here is you don't like it while many others will. If they made it look like an iMac than all the people that didn't like the look of an iMac also wouldn't like the look of this! Most electrical devices these days are black so this will tie-in.

True, that is not attractive either. Putting the extra baggage behind the screen would be best.

Not so much my tastes, I'm not even a potential customer all-in-one, but those of a lot of people. You don't hear about people choosing a standard pc box over an Apple because of style. Competing for some of the same target market as Apple can't be that hard because you can match quality while undercutting price pretty easily.

Obviously, Lenovo is taking the high road w/ its pricing at say 20-25% lower than Apple's. Asus looks a little more affordable at maybe 30% off. But they're not the only ones chasing the all-in-one market. Just about all the big brands are in there.

Here's MSI's 20", well-equipped package for ~$650.

HP's pricier than Lenovo, close to the iMacs:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaig ... /Overview/

Delland Sony have been offering them for a while. Shuttle just got in, ditto Gigabyte. Surprised Acer isn't there already, maybe soon.

The main challenge for all of these players is distribution and promotion. Most look good enough, and probably aren't that different in performance. Just have to get them in front of the buyers -- I'd be surprised if this did not become a big segment of the home market. The attractions of all-in-ones far outweigh any downsides for typical users, especially today.

Most of the new all-in-ones look nice, and their specs are pretty good, and of course Apple I think still leads the pack. But as long as the major brands remain obssessed with glossy screens I can't be tempted.

I had a look at a Sony AIO recently and the screen seemed extra glossy, to the point where I could barely see what the image was from all the reflections of the store lights and sun from the store windows. I could also hear the fans pretty clearly. Not a good sign.

Center of mass - if you put the stuff behind the screen, it probably becomes wobbly.
However, wallmounting something like that would be interesting...

Lenovo also has a smaller, Atom powered AIO, the C100
http://www.dailytech.com/Lenovo+Unveils ... e16277.htm

30" iMac...

The gloss is not the only ergonomical annoyance. The screen height is not adjustable and the brightness does not go below ~220 cd/m2 - bad for your eyes in rooms with dim lighting.

Btw. nice review. Though I always think it's a shame that the screen goes to waste once the AIO PC is outmodded. Additional displays always come in handy.

I think it's worth noting that the all in one pc never really left, it just hid out in Japan.

One thing I was really impressed with visiting there 4 years ago was all the all in ones. I figure a very techy culture combined with tiny apartments just pushed them that way before the rest of us. In all the surplus shops in Akihabara there were tons of old all in ones, right back to CRT days.

MikeC: Apple iMac uses mobile CPU's.

Their specs (1066 MHz and 6MB L2 cache) doesn't match Intel's desktop models. Could be custom SKU's though, theoretically.

Here's a pic, not the best, but you can clearly identify the black plastic socket between the heatpipes, it's not LGA775.

I stand corrected. I just had a look at Intel mobile processor catalog -- had no idea they went up to 3.06 GHz & 6mb cache (for a T9900) -- 35W, too. Not sure I'd want any laptop with suc a beast. Battery life would be miserable.

I couldn't agree more. Actually, it frustrates me to see that this seems like a theme across all window's OS. The fact is, it does fine....if you take care of it. For the average teenage girl, this is impossible, so that's how their computers get ruined with spyware and such.

Built my computer over a year ago. Did about an hour of streamlining XP and after dl-ing avg and a freeware firewall, it's just as snappy as the day I built it. Then again, I guess not all users know how / care....

They're more for mobile workstations, say a Thinkpad W700, than true laptops. You can pack a lot of battery into those (main 9-cell and a secondary 3-cell, at least), and you can easily restrict the CPU to lower frequencies on battery.

All Core 2 Duo Txxxx are rated for 34-35 W. That's Intel's definition of the T-series and it's been like that for 3 years.

Even the original 65 nm C2D T5500 1.66 GHz is rated for 34 W, and the Core Duo is 31 W.
AMD have been shipping 35 W CPU's for many years too, it's pretty much the standard TDP for CPU's in regular 15" laptops.

You must be mixing up the 35 W figure with 45 W, which is used in some quad cores.

Yeah, but most of them don't use anything like that.

Hi,

I just realized that the thing that the Lenovo is missing that I would miss, is the ability to use a second monitor -- there is no DVI or RGB port...

kkkkkk thats lameeeeeeeeeeeee

On page 4 you claim to get 23 MB/s over wireless-g, that can't be possible?