The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z touts it’s ease to upgrade as well as a low price point. The A70z ThinkCentre design is just what I have come to expect from Lenovo. Sturdy, simple and well designed even when it comes down to the packaging.

The A70z comes with what most PC’s come with.  Keyboard, Mouse, Power cord and the documentation.  Restore CD’s are missing but can be burned after booting into the OS.  This is a welcome change from including a disk in every A70z sold.  When I get 50 machines in at once I usually keep one or two sets of the restore/OS Disks and throw the rest out.  I am disappointed in the fact that the keyboard and mouse aren’t wireless but understand at this price point it probably didn’t make sense.

The small foot print and all in one design allows for businesses to roll it out without too much hassle.  The price point for a entry level business class desktop is right on track.  The machine is incredibly fast on boot and took everything I could throw at it.  I was very surprised that Lenovo did not load the machine up with tons of 3rd party bloatware like is prevalent in this price range.  Instead they included software that allowed you to install which 3rd party apps you would like on your machine.  The 19 inch monitor would be adequate for basic business tasks but would not work for a power user.  What disappointed me the most was the lack of an expansion slot for video.  I realize this is a low end machine but I am starting to see a trend for large wide screen monitors and/or dual screens.   There is a USB Display option available but I have never been fond of expanding displays with USB technology.

I took the machine apart to validate Lenovo’s claims about how easy the A70z was to upgrade even though the machine was a All-In-One PC.  I found a section that included guides on the Lenovo website which made it easy to follow but I was a little disappointed.  When I heard “easy to upgrade” I was imagining a tool less chassis that would be very easy to get into.  Instead I found many screws and steps to get into the innards of the A70z.  Surprisingly the machine took full size dims and the RAM was easily accessible as soon as the back of the case was removed.  I did not like the design of the connector for the hard drive.  I found it difficult to deal with when trying to replace the drive and took me many tries to actually get the connections to stick.

Pros

• Small Footprint
• Limited Pre-Installed Bloatware
• Good Build Quality
• Lots of USB Expansion Ports
• Price
• Built in Standard Power Supply (no funky cords or power bricks!)

Cons

• No Display Expansion (except for USB)
• Lots of steps to remove back cover to get to the innards
• Small Display

Overall the A70z is perfect for the market it was made to serve.  It has a small footprint and good features for the price.  I would recommend it to any business who is looking to get the most bang for their buck in a small footprint.

If you want more details on the A70 or info on where to purchase it visit the Lenovo A70z page.

I have noticed over the years the same customers I gave my recommendation to were complaining about increased problems but I just shrugged it off. I then was given 30 machines from around 1999 – 2001 to build a temporary training class with, half HP, Half Dell. I had problems with almost each one of the Dell’s. Everything from not posting to the heat sink clip being broken. The HP’s also had a couple of issues but not near as many as the Dell’s.

I thought at the time it might have been a coincidence, until my company decided to buy 500 off lease Dell GX260’s for a fresh build out. I was horrified, not because they were Dell’s but because they were old and ratty. We made due with what we were given and put them out to production and have seen nothing but issues. Everything from BIOS batteries going out to smoke coming out of the power supply. We have between 4 – 6 of these off lease Dell’s go bad every month and at least 2 of them have “caught fire” from the power supply.

Now I hear that Dell knowingly covered up that they sold faulty motherboards? Not just one or two, but 11.8 million!  How can I recommend for anyone to get a Dell product when they try to sweep this under the rug? How am I to know that they didn’t cover up a faulty power supply design in the GX260’s that we have so many issues with and they just haven’t been caught yet?

If you are looking for a new build out of any type I would steer clear of Dell, I know I will be for quite some time.

I will be attending keynotes, hands on sessions as well as trolling the floor and talking to the many HP Partners that will be presenting at the expo.  I will be tweeting about anything I hear and see that I find interesting and snapping shots and uploading them to Flickr as the day goes by.

If you have anything you would like to see or if you want to get answers about specific technology from HP Execs let me know!

Disclaimer:  HP has provided my flight and accomidations for this event.  However they have no control over the content I produce.  My opinions, tweets and blog posts are my own.

I received my previous Windows Mobile device, the Touch Pro 2, last October. Overall it has been a good device and it lasted me over 6 months without a major problem.  An impressive feat considering most devices only last 3  months without my need to seek out a replacement.  I was getting bored with the Touch Pro 2 and Windows Mobile and so I got the choice of a HTC Snap (oh heck no), a HTC Hero or a Samsung Moment. I didn’t particularly like the design of the Moment so I went with the Hero.

I love some of the new features of the new Android device, like Visual Voicemail, push email on multiple types of email accounts and merging contacts/calendars from multiple sources.  All of these items are things I wish Windows Mobile offered but never could find a way to do it.

After using the Hero for a week I am beginning to think the Moment might have been a better choice.  Sense UI seems to cause some problems on the underpowered Hero processor and the on screen keyboard has been hard to get used to.  Some of the features I am surprised that are missing are features enterprises would look for, like enforced security options as well as remote wipe and remote lock.  I know these are available as third party apps but without these features built into a centralized console security conscious businesses will continue to shy away from the Android platform.

If Google wants to continue to pull business away from the Google Apps platform I think they need to figure out how to include these advance security features into Android as well as Google Apps.

I attended a number of sessions throughout the day talking about Virtualization and Outsourcing security as well as a walk through the expo floor.  You can see some of the pictures as well as the tweets here.  Tomorrow I have appointments with Avocent, HP and a few other companies to talk about their current technology as well as where they feel the overall direction of the industry is going.  I will be tweeting live from the floor and posting a overview on TechVirtuoso of day 2 at Interop.

While at Interop I will be posting about everything I see as well as tweeting about everything I see from the keynotes to the expo floor and the conference tracks.  I have scheduled some time with companies like Avocent and DisplayLink to discuss their upcoming products.  If you would like us to check anything out while we are there just send me a message or post a comment.  For those of you heading to Interop you shoud checkout the Spiceworks contest.  I am sure you will get some attention if you are one of the winners!

They purchased a (at the time) a state of the art system and spent a big chunk of change thinking it would last them forever.  Fast Forward 10 years and that same system that cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars is now worth 30K (if they found a sucker on the street) and they were spending thousands of dollars every month on maintenance for the ancient piece of equipment sitting on the wall.  They were stuck with a dinosaur and were quickly falling behind their competitors.

At the time they had four options.

1. Invest a significant amount of money into a upgraded phone system
2. Move to a “Virtual PBX” a fairly new type of phone service, mainly used for home based businesses
3. Stick with the Dinosaur they know and continue to fall behind their competition
4. Move to a unproven, unknown “Hosted” solution.

Looking back I believe they should have chosen the Virtual PBX option.  This would have allowed them to take advantage of the new features coming to market as well as keeping their costs down and without replacing equipment.  It also would have allowed them to keep ahead of the game by taking advantage of the new features as they come to market instead of waiting for upgrades to a proprietary phone system.

These Virtual PBX systems have come a long way since I first started to research them.  I have been given a 90 day free evaluation of the new Mobile service by RingCentral and I am impressed at the progress these services have made.  They allow small companies to get the services provided by a enterprise class phone switch without making the large investment up front.

Do you think Virtual PBXs are the route of the future?  How would this technology help your company?

No matter the reason I cannot wait to get my hands on this device.  The rumored Snapdragon processor, slim form factor and large display should make this phone a winner among many Sprint fans.  Look below for some leaked photos of the new device, these photos have been taken from EngadgetMobile.com, androidmobileos.com and youhtc.ru.

After the video Gary Thome, Chief Architect for ISB presented an overview for the Infrastructure Software and Blades division as well as presenting his thoughts for Data Center trends for 2010.  One of the key points of his presentation was virtualization of the data center, including power.  After Gary’s presentation was complete we had a partner presentation from a HP Partner on their business and why they partner with HP.  Before we broke for Lunch we had a great presentation on Virtual Connect and how HP views standards like FCoE and other standards.

After we broke for lunch we split up into two groups.  My group went into the BladeSystem lab to discuss the HP Blades.  We then visited the Insight Software group to learn about the Infrastructure Software HP is working on.  After we went over the Infrastructure Software we then went back into the BladeLab to go over a competitive difference session.  Stay Tuned for more in depth posts of these sessions coming in the next few days!

We ended our day at HP with a discussion from Paul Perez, CTO of Storage for HP.  Paul had some very interesting views and ideas of where storage is going toward the future.  One of the items he was very passionate about was something called a memristor, a new type of storage that he believes will fuel the next generation of storage products.

This trip was sponsored by HP.  HP paid for the travel arrangements and most meals for 10 bloggers to visit the HP Houston campus.

The pizza and drinks were very good and during dinner I had some great discussions with @kevin_houston, @Knieriemen, @rbrambley, @kiwi_Si, @StorageNerve and @sfoskett.  We talked about everything on how to create a good podcast (Contact Greg Knieriemen if you need to know how to create one, he loves it) to the origins of ProCurve (which we still do not have a full answer).

Dinner at Pizza Fusion – Picture taken by Stephen Foskett

After dinner we headed back to the hotel where John Obeto surprised us with some Nigerian Palm Wine.  I was a little hesitant after the smell but after a couple of drinks I decided it wasn’t to bad.  After a couple of glasses I decided It was probably best to call it a night before I wasn’t able to get up in the morning.

The Palm Wine – Picture taken by Rich Brambley

Stay tuned for more posts on the HP Blades Tech Day!

This trip was sponsored by HP.  HP paid for the travel arrangements and most meals for 10 bloggers to visit the HP Houston campus.