Lenovo ThinkCentre M52-9210-D1M

Lenovo's new ThinkCentre comes tailored for your office right out of the box. For all of its business acumen, though, office applications are notably absent from its software suite.

Included software from Lenovo concentrates on recovery, maintenance and security. IBM Client Security Software, PC Doctor and Create Recovery Disc, among others, enhance the reliability of the platform. The support for fingerprint recognition and an embedded security chip will be welcomed by many businesses. However, a fingerprint scanner must be purchased separately.

The unit is has a small footprint at 8cm x 31cm x 35cm and comes without a monitor, as many workplaces will have these already. The ThinkCentre comes with a stand so it can be positioned horizontally or vertically, further increasing desk space. The case is well-built and incredibly strong. Tucked inside is a 3GHz Pentium 4 processor and an 80GB hard drive without locking SATA clips. The built-in speaker is small, but will deliver all the sound you need for office work. On the back are six USB 2.0 ports, two serial ports, Gigabit Ethernet connection and VGA output. On the front are two more USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone ports.

The chassis is completely tool-less and can be easily popped open for maintenance. The ThinkCentre is upgradeable, with one spare PCI slot and a one spare PCIe x1 slot. There is also one RAM slot available to boost it from its current 512MB DDR2 RAM to a max of 4GB. The optical drive, which is 16x DVD and 48x CD, doesn't burn discs. This might seem annoying, but adds to data security. However, it does leave me questioning why there are eight USB 2.0 ports which you cannot lock down.