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Lenovo C100  (Source: Lenovo)
Lenovo throws new C100 AIO into the fray at $399

It's easy to understand why netbooks are so popular with consumers today. The little notebooks are very portable and have low average prices making them affordable for most users despite the poor economy. On the desktop front, the all-in-one segment is the fastest growing with IDC pegging the segment to grow at 12.4% from 2008 to 2014.

Lenovo pulled the wraps off a new all-in-one PC that puts an emphasis on style and low cost today called the C100. The machine has a svelte profile of only two inches deep despite the all-in-one design of the machine. The thin machine has a webcam, speakers, and a mic built-in to the case as well.

The screen of the C100 is an 18.5-inch 16:9 aspect ratio unit. The machine is powered by an Intel Atom 330 dual core processor and has an integrated DVD burner and four USB ports. Lenovo also packs the C100 with 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA 950 graphics and a 160GB HDD. Windows XP comes on the machine, but you can expect to see Windows 7 offered in a few weeks when the new OS launches. The C100 will start at $399.

“Packed with cool experiences and available at a very affordable price, the C100 expands Lenovo’s consumer offering for the fast growing all-in-one market segment,” said Dion Weisler, vice president, Business Operations, Lenovo. “The C100 is simple to set up and easy to use, ideal for those seeking a convenient way to enhance their digital lifestyle.”

Lenovo also unveiled new laptops with multi-touch screens this week as well.


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Hate to say
By FITCamaro on 9/17/2009 1:50:51 PM , Rating: 3
But this might be my parents next PC. Its cheap, will get the job done, and is compact. My parents don't need anything crazy. Just enough to get on the web, burn some discs, etc.




RE: Hate to say
By Chris Peredun on 9/17/2009 1:58:09 PM , Rating: 2
Nothing wrong with buying as much PC as is needed. They certainly don't need a Core i7 to keep up with family events.

I might be inclined to suggest waiting for the touchscreen Windows 7 version - though that will drive the price up to the $500 mark.


RE: Hate to say
By FITCamaro on 9/17/2009 2:45:40 PM , Rating: 3
A touch screen would only confuse my dad.


RE: Hate to say
By Machinegear on 9/17/2009 1:59:15 PM , Rating: 5
Don't forget it's...

quote:
Packed with cool experiences


...too!


RE: Hate to say
By retrospooty on 9/17/2009 9:23:35 PM , Rating: 2
LOL - read in crappy freeware stuck in the autostart to bog down the PC for unsuspecting newbz at no extra cost.


RE: Hate to say
By chmilz on 9/17/2009 2:22:54 PM , Rating: 2
When my new house is done being built you'll find something like this in the kitchen/dining room, for general household use.


RE: Hate to say
By Souka on 9/17/2009 3:13:36 PM , Rating: 2
I have an old laptop that sits on a table between the kitchen and family room (which has the TV). Open lid, system wakes up and you're on-line within 5 seconds.

It's used all the time by my family for email, social net site, tv guide, watching programs online, and other stuff..

got it free from last company as a "end of life laptop"... a Thinkpad T41 (1.7ghz Pentium M, WinXP, 2GB Ram, 80GB 7200rpm drive, CD/DVD burner, 802.11 b/g wifi)... nice little laptop and about 3hrs battery life typical...


RE: Hate to say
By Screwballl on 9/17/2009 4:04:50 PM , Rating: 2
agreed... this will be my mother-in-laws next PC... she barely knows where the power button is so the simpler it is, the better for her.
for now she has a Dell B110 with Celeron 585, 1 GB DDR, integrated Intel video of some sort, and XP SP3. We tried Vista that came with it but it just crashed every week or so, so I switched it to XP which has worked perfectly for the past year or two. If I get an extra W7 license, I plan to switch it to W7 as my laptop is similarly spec'd to her machine and works great!


Graphics
By TomZ on 9/17/2009 2:10:49 PM , Rating: 2
Darn shame it doesn't have X4500 instead of the '950... Otherwise it looks like a perfect low-cost, cool-looking computer.




RE: Graphics
By StevoLincolnite on 9/17/2009 2:36:05 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Darn shame it doesn't have X4500 instead of the '950... Otherwise it looks like a perfect low-cost, cool-looking computer.


Personally I would rather a low-voltage under-clocked 2.7ghz single core Sempron/Celeron. (Probably sitting around the 1.5-2ghz mark would be ideal).

Combined with a Radeon 3200/4200 it would be a nice little multimedia system, with low power usage.

What I don't like about these all-in-one systems is it's limited upgrade ability, although they are designed as low-cost low-powered solutions, I still like the idea of dropping something more powerful in later down the line when the time comes to use the PC for a different purpose, like a HTPC, adding a new low-end Radeon or Geforce is simply un-feasible, thus you end up stuck with an Intel decelerator.


RE: Graphics
By GeorgeH on 9/17/2009 2:54:30 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, but why would you ever use something like this as an HTPC? So you can have a monitor driving your monitor?

My issue with this is it's nothing more than an Atom platform slapped inside a cheap monitor case. You'd be a lot better off getting something like the Aspire Revo and mounting it on the back of the monitor of your choice.

I have many, many uses for inexpensive IMac-style PCs, just build them with "real" and upgradeable components, not low-power netbook ones. There's plenty of room for heat dissipation in an 18"+ monitor form factor, battery life is a non-issue, and an extra 20W of power consumption for more than twice the performance is well worth it.

As soon as a manufacturer figures out that they can easily build a standard mini-ITX case into the back of a monitor and let the consumer choose what mini-ITX board to use with it (Atom? ION? 775/GF9300? AM2+/780G? 775/G45?) they might just get some of my money.


RE: Graphics
By RocketChild on 9/17/2009 3:09:41 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, I like the idea of having it in the kitchen too and then being able to stream some heavy media to it from server in the closet.
So it would be nice to have a system that could handle some of the bigger video decoding.


RE: Graphics
By mmntech on 9/17/2009 4:50:09 PM , Rating: 2
I really would have loved to see this on the Ion platform. I know they're going for lowest cost possible but the GMA950 is considerably outdated at the point.


Heading in the right direction.
By dark matter on 9/17/2009 6:00:06 PM , Rating: 3
This is certainly heading in the right direction.

for too long consumers have been sold more and more powerful machines that serve no particular purpose apart from consuming more and more electricity and becoming noisier and noisier.

The majority of people use a computer for surfing the internet, watching you-tube, going on social media sites. I would even estimate that other than video word is the most taxing program the majority of PC owners own. Even MS has realised the error of its ways and made Windows7 run on old hardware sufficiently fast. (Taking a leaf out of Linux book there, MS, well done)

Of course people such as you guys on here and myself would want something that has a lot more power. But right now, as I type this post this device would serve me more than adequately. Sure I may have 8Gb of RAM in my machine right now and an E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz. I do use photoshop, dreamweaver, illustrator and code in PHP/MySQL using XAMPP so that power is needed. But only when i am doing the video work. I could easily do the coding on one of those machines.

Quite frankly it would be nice to have an all in one unit like this with bluetooth keyboard and mouse (trackball on the keyboard would be even better!!) so that I can have a unit like this in the living room.

Its stylish, its compact, its low power and it does 100% of the things I need when I am not working.

People talk about it not being able to handle HD video. Well, personally I wouldn't watch HD video on anything less than a 40" screen. I don't see the point otherwise. Especially as one of the benefits of HD video is HD sound, yet I don't see anyone moaning it doesn't come with 7.1 dolby certified speakers.

So many people are wrapped up with this idea about HD quality decoding and how important it is, despite the really low screen size you will be watching it on.

1600 x 900?? Upscale a DVD.




RE: Heading in the right direction.
By shabby on 9/17/2009 6:12:01 PM , Rating: 2
Getting less for more is not heading in the right direction.
Sure it looks cool and hip, but an intel atom with 1gb of ram is painfully slow, mom and pop will be complaining in no time.
Is is really that hard to stick a case under a desk?


By dark matter on 9/18/2009 2:38:26 AM , Rating: 2
Yes it is hard to stick a case under a desk. Especially is the machine isn't actually on a desk. The whole point about me having one in the front room would be that it wouldn't have to be on a desk.


pros and cons
By mattclary on 9/18/2009 9:21:05 AM , Rating: 2
While these things are neat, simple, and not that expensive, I will still with a box that I can easily replace components in.




RE: pros and cons
By BZDTemp on 9/21/2009 7:15:21 AM , Rating: 2
Same here (in fact I've just made a box go from a P4 - X1900XTX combo to a iCore7 870 - 4890 2 GB combo). However for anyone not dealing in either gaming, video editing or similar something like this (or an Mac Mini) is a great solution.


For $400 the specs are lousy...
By iFX on 9/17/2009 6:37:12 PM , Rating: 1
If this came with 2-4GB of ram, nVidia or ATi graphics, integrated Blutooth and a 500+GB hard drive I would say it's worth the price. As it stands though it's not justifiable in my book.

Please save the "you can't build this for $400" comments.




By AstroGuardian on 9/18/2009 5:49:41 AM , Rating: 2
I agree. Come on! An Atom? That little chip sucks. It's not good for anything. Only even Firefox will get it's guts out. Not mentioning you will have hard times watching blue-ray movies on it. Not to mention letting your kids play Spore for an hour a day.

Having worked a LOT with IBM and Lenovo, i noticed that they are extremely conservative regarding latest technologies. They are at least 6-10 months behind the rest of the manufacturers. For example the new ThinkPad SL500 is sold with 2 GB ram and T5810 cpu, 160gb HDD, no web cam, no fingerprint reader, lousy screen. I mean come on!


Not $399
By TomZ on 9/17/2009 4:14:19 PM , Rating: 2
Desipite what Lenovo's PR claims, the C100 is being offered at Lenovo's web site for starting at $499, not $399.

It also appears to be only available with a single-core Atom. The dual-core is not offered, at least at the moment.

Lenovo also has a larger C300 (20") that runs $449-549 (starting) and is available with the dual-core Atom. The upper config C300 also has ATI HD 4530 M92-M+ graphics instead of the GMA950.

Display resolution is 1600x900 for both C100 and C300.




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