The Return of the Business Class All-in-One
ThinkCentre A70z with chrome wire form stand
It’s been a while since we got to design and introduce an all-in-one computer targeted at the business user. Lately we have been designing primarily towers and pancakes of various sizes. My team pioneered this category way back in the year 1999 with the watershed design of the NetVista X40. The head turning design was done in close collaboration with our design guru Richard Sapper. It was a great experience for all involved. The trim flat panel based X40 was a serious counter punch to the overtly pudgy and candy colored CRT based offering introduced by a “fruit” company. Amazing how they have changed their design approach since then. One reviewer humorously mentioned that the design we created looked as though it could beat up the “pudgy one” after school and steal their lunch money. In 2001 we significantly updated the design of the X40. You can watch a short video we shot that highlights the design of the X41 on YouTube. The hair styles may look a bit dated but the computer doesn’t. It was a dramatic improvement not only in terms of overall appearance, but also ergonomic flexibility, serviceability, configurability, and system performance. Domus magazine ran a major story on the X41 design which included the world’s first, and I think only, centerfold showcasing the design. Sadly, the category was abandoned by IBM due to a maniacal focus on belt tightening rather than product innovation. We already had a totally modular design in the works that would have shocked the industry. We still have the design model stored away for posterity, or possible future use.
Striking profile of the award winning NetVista X41 circa 2000
Years later, Lenovo picked up where IBM stumbled with the introduction of the first ThinkCentre all-in-one. The ThinkCentre A70z is a solid entry into the market with a starting price just below 500 dollars. I remember when a 19″ flat panel display cost far more than that. The design is rather simple in concept, we wanted it to look like a computer monitor. I don’t think people want to stare at a overly styled object tht competes all day with the information it displays. The design uses a now familar chamfer technique to make the product look slimmer. This is pretty easy to accomplish since the entire thing in reality is only 2.4″ thick at the thinnest point. We first started chamfering the sides of flat panel monitors and then the X40 series all-in-ones back in my old IBM days. Even the Shakers used chamfers on some of their furniture designs to emphasize thinness or precision. One of my favorites that uses a chamfer is the top of the New Lebanon Candle Stand from the mid 1800’s. Did the Shakers realize they were such masters of modern design? The clean, well-proportioned forms of Shaker furniture and artifacts were opposed to the material values of the superfluous ornamentation that prevailed in 19th-century industrialized culture. Sounds a lot like modernism to me.
I love the way it floats above the desk and keyboard on the optional articulated arm
Perhaps more important than form characteristics, the new all-in-one can be used in several different ways. For a computer targeted at simplicty of install and space savings this is highly important. The base offering uses a somewhat magical spring loaded chrome leg that effortlessly adjusts the display to different angles, it does not however provide any height adjustment. If you require height adjustment we offer a more traditional stand similar to the one many of the ThinkVision monitors already ship with. Within the design department, we often call it the pogo stick stand. For ultimate adjustability the entire unit can be arm mounted like the X41 using the VESA mounting holes. The same holes can also be used for a simple wall mount similar to that of a flat panel television. I really like the idea of a wall mounted computer for kiosk use. It’s hard to beat wall mounting for ultimate space savings.
We added a simple lifting handle for your convenience
The computer effortlessly tilts into position thanks to a magical spring
I like the reserved all business quality of the design we created and the innovative installation options it enables. It’s great so have a nice all-in-one back in the lineup. Business never looked better.
David Hill
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
November 5th, 2009 10:04 pm
Very nice. After I switched to laptops only to save space and power I might get such a desktop all-in-one after all.
Changing the subject a bit, I especially like one of the photos, the one with… the new T400s-alike keyboard but with no cord! Does that mean a wireless version is coming?
November 5th, 2009 10:48 pm
The only reason I could imagine someone going for this (vs a 21.5″ iMac for example) is cost. But there you’re competing with the (quite similar) Dell Vostro all-in-one unit in a race to the bottom, except it’s not even that because you want customers to pay a premium for an integrated unit (otherwise why not grab a $400 dell with larger display?). Like the W700, I just can’t see many people wanting this. That makes it a low volume high margin product, making even less people want it, forming a negative loop.
You no longer have the best built notebooks. Apple overtook you last year. Throw everything else away and get back in the run in your core ThinkPad notebook business. I really want you guys to succeed, but all I currently see (apart from a few glimpses of hope from products like the X300 and T400s) is you being torn apart by competitors on different fronts, just like Microsoft.
November 5th, 2009 11:24 pm
Whoo…. so has Lenovo settled on what wireless mode the new wireless keyboard going to be.
Also, i love the new all in one desktops. Also, hopefully lenovo allows these all in one machines be used as an standalone LCD monitors with displayport or hdmi inputs.
November 6th, 2009 1:17 am
David – is that a wireless TrackPoint keyboard I see there?
November 6th, 2009 2:47 am
yak,lead_org,John
It is a wireless $45 keyboard. Read David’s previous posts!
November 6th, 2009 6:27 am
Yi, I’m a subscriber, I read all of them, the recent one about wireless keyboard too. The thing is, it was about a survey (which I participated in BTW), not about the actual product. Hence our excitement.
Here’s the survey post:
http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=2737
November 6th, 2009 1:59 pm
Hey yak,lead_org and John
Sorry, I was confused.
November 6th, 2009 5:01 pm
I like the look of A70. It’s sad, that this computer doesn’t have any video output. It would be a great machine with attached secondary LCD (also mounted on arm).
November 6th, 2009 9:28 pm
Dear David,
Love the all in one new designs I’m very interested in a ThinkCentre A70z however the new wireless keyboard looks scary! it has a different layout just like Dell and HP I’m afraid it may have flex! i really want the regular rock solid IBM keyboard & mouse but wireless! anyhow congrats i really love it but i wont buy it until l i check out the keyboard or read a review about it positive.
November 7th, 2009 8:55 am
Come on, guys. Haven’t you seen hundreds of pictures with hidden cables? I’m talking speakers, TVs, kitchen machines, whatever! Do you see a power cord to the computer in any of those pictures? It’s just the current keyboard!
@David
I love that design! Would I choose it over the offerings from a certain fruit company? Not for now.
But implement the multitouch screen, make sure it is a nice matte high fidelity (I’m talking colors and not resolution now) display and gosh! I’m sold!
November 8th, 2009 9:28 am
Sorry if I’ve missed something reading this, or the product page, or the online news blurbs, but I ask this about every new Lenovo all-in-one and monitor when it’s not laid out explicitly:
Which sort of a panel and what sort of backlighting are involved?
November 9th, 2009 1:08 pm
Diagon, it looks like it has a VGA port (video out) on the back.
November 10th, 2009 9:07 pm
That actually looks like a serial port – VGA is HD15 female, that port looks like DB9 male.
Having said that, I don’t know whether the photos are ‘real’ or mock-ups, so I guess we’ll have to wait to see final specs. But something that can’t take a 2nd monitor is not a business class PC – even secretaries and such benefit from a 2nd panel.
November 11th, 2009 3:03 am
Will this work in portrait mode? It looks like it’s limited to landscape mode…
Horizontal monitor layouts are great for watching TV and movies, but (sadly) that’s not our IT department is paid to do. Virtually all users’ monitors at my company are mounted vertically, so I can’t see how we’d use this.
November 11th, 2009 1:00 pm
Simon, after taking a closer look, I realize I was wrong. Sort of odd to include a Serial port on a machine like this no? I mean, wouldn’t all mass IT changes be done over Ethernet?
You can clearly see the Serial port in Lenovo’s introduction video.
November 11th, 2009 4:47 pm
Durla, any screen is capable of vertical mode, this is only software related (VESA mounts are square, but you likely wouldn’t be able to use the stand).
There are many companies that make software for this, here’s one: http://www.brothersoft.com/scr.....23545.html
I will say that this machine would definitely not look very good in vertical mode due to the fact that its borders are not equal, as there is the speaker at the bottom – which would be on the side. You’d also have some pretty interesting video conferences… I’m sure there’s software to fix that too though.
November 12th, 2009 8:13 am
nice machine – what about the actual power draw? since the shuttle SD11G5 (pentium-m based) there has been no really low power SFF With room for storage, a shame really considering all the nice low power mobile components out there
November 12th, 2009 8:15 am
sorry last comment was for the D400 entry not this
November 12th, 2009 1:22 pm
“I don’t think people want to stare at a overly styled object that competes all day with the information it displays.”
Absolutely totally could not agree more with this statement. This is the epitome of design “in context”.
Aside from perhaps grand architecture or large sculptures surrounded by dedicated neutral space, every object is always experienced in context of other objects. Utilitarian objects like computers are never experienced in isolation from the content/virtual worlds they give us access to.
All too often we see (style-shallow?) designers working on their object as the be-all and end-all, divorced from the context of its daily use. This is nothing short of irresponsibility.
Which is one reason I detest bling hardware and software. Please leave me in (visual) peace to focus on my work. Don’t shine lights in my face, don’t bounce (unless it IS an emergency)… I will drfinitely appreciate the design more that way.
November 16th, 2009 12:55 am
[...] Images from Lenovo Blogs. [...]
November 16th, 2009 7:16 pm
It is like you are 10 years behind in the industry…
January 29th, 2010 1:29 pm
also…