IBM Thinkcentre S50 Ultrasmall Desktop

This IBM desktop PC has a small size and sleek design-it is almost a quarter of the size of regular desktops. It can be kept in both horizontal and vertical positions. When placed horizontally, the 15" LCD can be easily kept on top of it, thus occupying less space. Its tool-free design makes it easy to open while replacing a part or upgrading. The USB ports on the front make it easier to connect USB drives, WiFi cards, etc. The Access IBM software facilitates PC configuration, backup and restoration of data and settings. The factory configured system partition on the disk drive allows you to recover data or

restore factory settings. You can even diagnose hardware faults with the PC-Doctor software.

We tested a P4 3.2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, CD-ROM, LAN, serial and parallel ports configuration. It has a pre-installed Win XP Pro and Norton Anti-Virus 2004. The PC performed very well giving Business Winstone 2002 and Content Creation Winstone 2003 scores of 31.4 and 49.3 respectively, which are comparable with some of the high-end PCs reviewed by us earlier.

The Bottom Line: The PC has a good design and performs well. It comes with useful software that can reduce the total cost of ownership of the PC over its lifetime.

Anoop Mangla