The Lenovo 3000 J115 comes only in a tower case with an appealing
gray-green, flat plastic front panel that displays colorfully lit buttons; it
reminded me of a German kitchen appliance. If you want a desktop or
ultracompact Lenovo system, you'll have to choose from the company's
ThinkCentre line. The 3000 series is intended to be more appropriate for small
businesses, while the ThinkCentre models are aimed at enterprise computing.
But behind its trendy, attractive facade, the J115 ($1238 as of 05/09/2007)
has a surprisingly bare-bones, old-fashioned case. You must remove two thumb
screws to slide the side panel off; and hard drives, optical drives, and
expansion cards are held in by screws, so to swap an optical drive, you'll have
to remove both of the case's side panels. Removing anything else inside the PC
(aside from RAM) requires tools.
The J115 uses small, traditional
fans--one in the power supply, located against the back of the case, and one
mounted on top of the CPU's heat sink. It's not a loud system, but it puts out
more noise than the Dell OptiPlex 740 we tested at the same time. The
standard-issue fans will likely cost less than Dell's, however, should you need
to replace them out of warranty.
The Athlon 64 X2 processor in this
system can take advantage of AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet technology, which allows the
PC to adjust the speed and voltage to meet the user's needs. AMD says that
Vista systems can take advantage of the technology without a driver, whereas XP
systems require one.
In our WorldBench 6 Beta 2 tests, the the J115
scored a 68, just a point behind the identically configured OptiPlex 740. These
three are the first Vista value systems we've tested. Compared with the power
Vista systems we tested last month, these systems are quite slow--the fastest
system we tested then scored a 129 on our benchmark.
The J115 model we
tested allowed only a single, VGA-monitor connection. Lenovo charges $139 for a
dual-head ATI X300SE. The 22-inch Lenovo monitor we tested with the J115 does
not allow height adjustments or swiveling--only tilting.
Lenovo offers
24/7 tech support and next-business-day on-site warranty service, but Dell and
HP offer same day on-site service. Lenovo offers same-day on-site service on
its ThinkCentre models, but not on the 3000 series. Lenovo, however, promises
1-minute-or-less access to tech support at no extra cost. In our most recent
reliability and service
survey, Lenovo earned average scores for reliability and an insufficient
number of responses for rating service.
Lenovo's reliability
marks--which are better than Dell's and HP's--should earn its system some
buying consideration, and I did like the look of it. But the OptiPlex 740 has a
better design by far. If you're partial to the Lenovo brand, I'd recommend a
system from its ThinkCentre line, which has many of the interior features and
service options offered by the OptiPlex.
Alan Stafford