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Lenovo's Atom-powered C100 is Cheap, Cheerful

by - source: Tom's Hardware US

We're fairly used to seeing cheap as chips Atom-based netbooks week in, week out so this offering from Lenovo is a nice change of scenery.

Following its launch of the ThinkPad X200 and T400s, the company has something a little more modest to offer those with little need for a full blown desktop. The company today announced the C100, an Atom-based all in one that boasts an 18.5-inch, 16:9 display with Intel's Atom 230 single core or the 330 dual core as well as a DVD burner/reader, 4 USB ports, GMA950 integrated graphics, 1 GB of RAM, a 160 GB (5400 RPM) hard drive. Top it all off with Windows XP and the starting price of $399 is almost too good to be true. Any takers? Let us know in the comments below!

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LORD_ORION 09/17/2009 11:57 PM
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fracture 09/17/2009 11:59 PM
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If it was smaller and multi-touchscreen.

WheelsOfConfusion 09/18/2009 12:05 PM
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LORD_ORION :
Please stop buying this crap. You can build something twice as powerful on your own.


People in the market for slim all-in-ones usually aren't the kind that build powerful systems for themselves.

Anonymous 09/18/2009 12:13 PM
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It's fine if you don't mind a painfully slow computer, but for anyone wanting something faster than my first computer I built in 2001(bleeding edge Athon XP), it's going to be a bit disappointing.

Pyroflea 09/18/2009 12:25 PM
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LORD_ORION, please post your slim, monitor-only PC you have built yourself. Thanks. :)

jellob 09/18/2009 12:31 PM
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@LORD_ORION:

You can build something twice as powerful, but would that be in the same budget range? Including a similar size monitor (that's doesn't have to be a touchscreen) which is probably already 30-40% of the budget? So leaving less than $300 to build the rest. Every little thing counts, including keyboard and mouse!

ckthecerealkiller 09/18/2009 12:50 PM
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Sounds like a good choice to me. Not quite an Nvidia ION or anything but def better then a netbook.

The_Blood_Raven 09/18/2009 12:52 PM
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climber 09/18/2009 1:05 AM
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Don't forget folks that pretty much every IT manager of any corporation or organization of any size has the agenda of having every user except themselves have thin clients, since we all (not them) do exactly the same job, essentially nothing needing any computing power beyond a keyboard, monitor and mouse. They're the only ones needing computing power and all the money associated with building server farms, computing clusters and dictating everything the rest of us are allowed to do. Pretty soon we'll have to phone the helpdesk to go take a poop.

pepperman 09/18/2009 1:10 AM
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http://laptoping.com/intel-atom-benchmark.html
the atom 1.6 GHz is closer to a P3 tualatin 1.4 GHz actually

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id- [...] hmark.html
It's definitely slower than an Athlon 3000+

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1997.html
In fact it's slower than an Athlon 2000+

Pyroflea 09/18/2009 1:12 AM
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Even the single core atom that I've used was a lot slower than the 3300+ computer that we unfortunately still have in this house. That's the single core, so the dual must be faster than that.

winterblade 09/18/2009 1:36 AM
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I honestly thing that Atom is working (and going to keep working) because we power users are a minority, and for 90% of the people an Atom is enough, perhaps barely enough, but still it can do what the normal user needs, for hardware enthusiast is Almost a blasphemy to buy a processor this weak that (to make everything worst) comes coupled with an old old, not optimized, chipset.
For us a ultraportable laptop is barely enough for the kind of responsiveness and performance we NEED in a machine of our own, but then again, we are a minority and let´s face it, Intel is only giving people what they want, let's just hope it doesn't become another Nintendo and almost forget us.

Anonymous 09/18/2009 1:51 AM
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pepperman: +1, I don't know where in the name of fanboyism he got that idea that a dual-core atom is anywhere near an Athlon X2 3800+, if anything, it would be lucky to beat my aging Pentium M 1.6ghz laptop, but I'm not convinced that it would.

mcbowler 09/18/2009 2:16 AM
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Race to the bottom. Sad.

LORD_ORION 09/18/2009 2:17 AM
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jellob :
@LORD_ORION: You can build something twice as powerful, but would that be in the same budget range? Including a similar size monitor (that's doesn't have to be a touchscreen) which is probably already 30-40% of the budget? So leaving less than $300 to build the rest. Every little thing counts, including keyboard and mouse!



I'll pretend you are honestly asking this... so I went to newegg. Not only can I make something useable (with a DVD drive too) it also comes in $50 cheaper giving you options.

eg of the day: $348.92

-LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS50 - OEM
-Broadway Com Corp 937PK-BLACK Steel Computer Case Okia ATX 420W Power Supply - Retail
-Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
-Hanns·G boston Simulated Woodgrain 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor w/ swivel a adjustment Built in Speakers -
-MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 AM3/AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
-Rosewill RK-101 Black PS/2 Standard Enhanced Keyboard - Retail
-Rosewill RM-C2P Black 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel PS/2 Optical Mouse - Retail
-AllComponents 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel kit Desktop Memory Model
-AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADX240OCGQBOX - Retail

This low end machines suck... they are meant to give the manfacturer high margins for the production cost, and to ensure these machines will be unuseable with the software coming out in the next few years, thus requiring another machine.

Every one of these crap machines sold ensures that your next computer will not be as powerful as it could be. Anyone defending this crap while using a real machine to do work themselves is an idiot.

climber 09/18/2009 3:03 AM
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Quote :LORD_ORION: Every one of these crap machines sold ensures that your next computer will not be as powerful as it could be. Anyone defending this crap while using a real machine to do work themselves is an idiot.


Not an idiot in my opinion just a hypocrite, the "do as I say, not as I do", crowd.

Anonymous 09/18/2009 3:27 AM
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Don't buy lenovo garbage, boycott Chinese products! don't support the chinese gov.

math1337 09/18/2009 3:52 AM
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The clear choice with that 50 dollars is to buy a new graphics card. The 19" screen has a relatively low resolution and a $50 card can handle less intense games such as Command & Conquer 3 at full detail. More graphically stressing games could be played with reduced settings or resolution.

maniac5999 09/18/2009 4:28 AM
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Hey Orion, I hate to ruin your argument, but you still need an OS. The all-in-one comes with XP, do you know anywhere to get XP (leagally)for $50.

Also, to be honest, for what I do at work, the dual core version of this would be more than enough if my company would ditchsome of the crapware they install on our computers. Basic productivity, web serving, and low level database management can easily be handled on an atom.

thejerk 09/18/2009 4:28 AM
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Perfect for my mother.

Pyroflea 09/18/2009 4:51 AM
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What Mr. Right here doesn't seem to get is that for 90% of users this is an excellent computer, and stated earlier, repeatedly. Just because you feel it's too slow, doesn't mean that $400 for an entire system that perform most average tasks is a bad deal.

lejay 09/18/2009 7:11 AM
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@LORD_ORION
We can't all be 15 year old fat kids who don't care how things look and have our parents to pay the electric bill...

NoCaDrummer 09/18/2009 7:18 AM
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I'm wondering, with a screen that large, and that proportion, why they didn't go with the nVidia Ion graphics. Yeah, a little more money, but it can handle 1080p graphics, so it should have no problem with that screen. It wouldn't necessarily be a "Mac killer", but it should have a fighting chance. (It LOOKS nice at least.)

Pyroflea 09/18/2009 7:40 AM
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NoCaDrummer :
I'm wondering, with a screen that large, and that proportion, why they didn't go with the nVidia Ion graphics. Yeah, a little more money, but it can handle 1080p graphics, so it should have no problem with that screen. It wouldn't necessarily be a "Mac killer", but it should have a fighting chance. (It LOOKS nice at least.)



I'm wondering the same myself. Who knows though, right? Maybe they will release another version featuring the ion. Now THAT would be nice :)

arlandi 09/18/2009 8:15 AM
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still waiting for the capability to play Blu-Ray discs and 1080p movies...

xBruce88wXx 09/18/2009 8:24 AM
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or at least have the ion as an upgrade option

FSC 09/18/2009 8:50 AM
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I could get this for my grand parents. 230 single/330 dual core, GMA950, 1 GB of RAM can barely handle reading emails. Besides my grand parents uses computers so slowly they wont notice the system lag while opening a net page.

nachowarrior 09/18/2009 12:04 PM
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it's the low end and o\/erad\/ertisement of underpowered laptops and ignorance of computer hardware that hold back real progress. if e\/eryone knew the preformance differences between performance they wouldn't buy this junk and it wouldn't be on the market except for special purpose computing. Anyway, point being, if more people bought mid range to higher and didn't settle for the shitty performance that most laptops put out computing in general would be better. Just like what "horsepower" and "MPG" does for cars, standard simple calculations that people can understand. Computer benchmarks are too difficult for the general public to understand, let alone how these benchmarks relate to o\/eral system performance. One good reason to stand behind AMD's platform certifications for spider/dragon etc, standards. Lets the general public know "hey this machine can play games and should be pretty fast" but still isn't standard across the board for the industry. Not to mention you ha\/e the flaming tools that say what their paid to say when you go in retail shops *cough, bestbuy, cough* those fags don't know a \/agina from a hole in the ground and will tell you a pentium dual core is faster than a phenom II just because the store gets kick backs and it gets the fags "bonuses" for sales. Fucktards. I think i'm going to start a \/ideo series exposing tool bags like that and get it run on nationwide news channels. I'm sick of shitty companies that can't build a computer for shit and wouldn't know what a fucking hard dri\/e was if you sho\/ed one up their ass.

and i appologize my \/ key doesn't work and i'm too lazy to fix it. :-p

JohnnyLucky 09/18/2009 1:48 PM
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I don't know. I'm starting to see young college students with small portable, wireless pc's simply because they cannot afford anything else.

thackstonns 09/18/2009 3:27 PM
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to everyone. These are okay for special use and basic use. I purchased a netbook threw all the kids stupid movies on it and now they use it on the road. (2 portable dvd players went to crap). Also they stream them through it to their 360 so no more discs 2 scratch up. And when we are on the road I can snag it and check my email. Now I bought it refurbed at 200 bucks. I wouldnt have paid a dime more for it though. I do think some of the prices of these things are rediculous though. I dont care whats in it, a netbook shouldnt be over 300 dollars.

jabliese 09/18/2009 3:35 PM
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Living room friendly e-mail/ web browsing machine.


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