The unique black and silver tower design of Lenovo's 3000 J200 series of desktop computers for small business gives these systems a distinctive flair. It's a serious design that suggests that the company is producing dependable machines.

The front USB ports and audio jacks line the lower right side, so they're within easy reach for connecting peripherals. The case can be opened without tools and, similarly, components can be swapped out without your IT department needing to hunt down a screwdriver. The top of the tower also has a built-in handle, so you can move the J200 systems from desk to desk quite easily.

The J200 series starts at around $400, providing a solidly built desktop computer that won't win any benchmark contests but will handle most basic business tasks. A 1.6GHz Intel Celeron M processor and 512MB of 667MHz RAM provide the core power of these systems. The default operating system is Windows Vista Home Basic, so you don't need a cutting-edge machine to handle the OS, but it's still one of the slowest configurations you will find on a new PC.

Luckily, Lenovo offers some straightforward processor upgrades. For $30 over baseline, you can shift over to a computer with a 1.6GHz Intel Dual-Core E2140 CPU. You still only have the 512MB of memory to start with, but the dual-core processor is worth the upgrade price. With the processor upgrade, you also get Windows XP Professional, a more suitable operating system for a business machine.

The rest of the components packed into the tower are rather plain at this price point. You get an 80GB 7,200rpm hard drive which provides a decent amount of space for a business user, but not a lot of elbow room if you're housing multimedia or large database files. It is shock-mounted for when you're taking the tower from place to place, but it's a pretty small drive, even for a business environment.

The optical drive doesn't offer much more. It's a basic DVD-ROM drive that can read CDs and DVDs, but it doesn't offer any disk burning abilities. Lenovo does, however, offer some package upgrades that include better optical and hard drives, which we'll explore later.

These systems ship with Lenovo Care tools, which allow them to be remotely managed across your company's network. They also support multiple password authentications, so you can use them in central locations where numerous users might need access to a desktop computer.

Graphics are integrated across the line, so you won't get much of a boost for handling large images or video, but most business desktop computers have little need for video cards anyway. If you end up needing to perform some computer-assisted design on your J200, there is an available PCI Express X16 slot, so you can add a current-generation graphics board if need be.

There is no monitor included at the baseline price, so if you need a display, that will add to the cost as well. Lenovo offers a 19-inch LCD in matching black for under $250 that delivers sharp resolution and a large screen; all told, this gives you a decent business computer system for under $700.

What if you need more power and better components? You'll want to consider one of Lenovo's package upgrades. Starting at $120 over the baseline price of $400, Lenovo gives you a faster 1.8GHz Intel Dual-Core E2160 processor and bumps the RAM up to a more respectable 1GB. This package also improves the drives, giving you double the storage space on a 160GB hard drive and the ability to burn your own CDs on a combination CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. This also gives you the option of including Microsoft's latest OS for professionals, Windows Vista Business.

For users needing even more central power, you can opt for one of Intel's latest Core 2 Duo processors. This upgrade package features all the options mentioned above (as well as a DVD-recordable drive instead of the combo drive), and also throws in an Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 processor with twin processing cores, each operating at 2GHz. It's a much more powerful desktop computer in terms of multitasking, but it adds nearly $280 to the overall price.

Regardless of the configuration you opt for, these business computers provide stability and security in a handy tool-less case. If your company is looking to upgrade its basic business PCs, the Lenovo 3000 J200 series has affordable models for practically any level of performance.


Pros: Tool-less tower, great starting price
Cons: Monitor not included

Warranty
1 year, limited