To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more

Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £760
inc VAT and delivery

Specifications

2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7300, 2.000000 RAM, 19in 1,440×900 display, Windows Vista Business

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop

Lenovo primarily makes PCs for business, and the M58 is no exception. It’s covered by a generous three-year onsite warranty, which is great for this price.

The case is around the size of a biscuit tin, so it takes up very little space. Getting inside the M58 is easy: simply press a button and swing the top of the chassis up to reveal the interior. You can fit an additional 2GB of RAM for a maximum of 4GB. You’ll have to use compact laptop memory, but the replaceable DVD writer and hard disk are standard desktop components. Due to the limited space, there’s no room for additional internal storage devices. The 320GB hard disk looks meagre compared with the 500GB disks that dominate this Labs, but it’s more than enough for office files. There are no PCI Express slots at all, though.

The M58 has an integrated Intel GMA 4500 graphics chip, which can’t cope with 3D games. The M58 was near the bottom of the table in our application benchmarks, but it’s not a slow PC – it suffers in comparison with the more powerfully equipped competition.

The M58’s strength is its energy efficiency. It consumed a meagre 19W when idle and just one watt more when running our demanding suite of benchmarks. In comparison, Mesh’s faster Matrix II 920 Nero used 120W when idle and 168W when running our benchmarks.

The M58 is usually sold without a monitor, but you can also buy it with a Lenovo 19in widescreen display. Its 1,440×900 resolution isn’t as high as the 1,680×1,050 of monitors supplied with other £650 PCs, but it’s fine for working on most office documents. Despite the VGA interface, image quality was acceptable.

Lenovo’s ThinkCentre M58 is ideal if you want a money-saving, energy-efficient PC for office work. It’s relatively expensive for the specification but has a long onsite warranty. If you can live without the warranty and the dual-core processor, Novatech’s Ion is just as power efficient but cheaper at just £263.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Processor external bus 266MHz (1,066MHz quad-pumped FSB)
Processor multiplier x10
Processor clock speed 2.66GHz
Processor socket LGA775
Level 1 cache 2x 32KB
Level 2 cache 3,072KB
Memory 2.000000
Memory type PC3-8500
Maximum memory 4GB
Motherboard chipset Intel Q45
Power consumption standby 0W
Power consumption idle 19W
Power consumption active 20W

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 2/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none
Other ports none

Internal Expansion

Case mini PC
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 0 (0)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 0 (0)
Free Serial ATA ports 0
Free memory slots 1
Free 3.5in drive bays 0

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS
Interface SATA 300
Total storage capacity 320GB
Spindle speed 7,200rpm

Graphics

Graphics card(s) Intel GMA 4500
Graphics/video ports VGA, DisplayPort

Sound

Sound SoundMax HD Audio
Sound outputs stereo line out
Speakers none

Removable Drives

3.5in floppy drive no
Supported memory cards none
Optical drive model LG GH10N
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 19 in
Screen model Lenovo L1940
Native resolution 1,440×900
Screen inputs VGA

Other Hardware

Modem No
Keyboard Lenovo KU-0225
Mouse Lenovo MO28UOL

Software

Software included InterVideo WinDVD 5, DisKeeper Home Edition, PC-Doctor 5, Roxio Creator Business Edition 10.1.177
Operating system Windows Vista Business
Operating system restore option restore partition

Buying Information

Warranty three years onsite
Price £760
Supplier http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop
Details www.lenovo.co.uk

Read more

Reviews