With the same type of easily removable tool-less housing as the ThinkCentre S50 this HP machine can be stripped and rebuilt very quickly, which will appeal to the corporate IT techs and SMEs wishing to avoid lengthy hardware failure downtime.
It offers several advantages over the IBM system. Firstly, the machine is completely integrated, like the IBM, and features built-in: audio, video but also a set of basic speakers.
It's also adorned with two front USB and audio inputs, great in the business environment for users with USB mobile phone chargers or PDA synchronisation needs.
Physically securable by a loop on the rear of the machine, it allows for complete system lock down, stopping users messing with things they shouldn't be. Once unlocked, you're ready to reef out hardware left and right with the removable internal panels dividing and protecting devices.
When I took a look inside I was surprised to find a giant combo heatsink and extractor fan. Despite its abnormally large size for a machine of this form factor, the system operates almost silently once the case is put together. Other than beating the IBM by nearly 30 SYSmarks, the two are quite similar in design, except for the expansion options. Both machines feature only two RAM slots, not unusual for corporate machines. However, the HP does offer an additional AGP slot for graphics card expansion, a big plus in our books, and enabling it to be upgraded to a graphics workstation. We weren't too surprised when the two machines returned poor 3DMark2001SE Pro results given that they're business desktop workstations.
Almost identically specced out internally, the HP boasts Gigabit Ethernet (GBE), compared to the 10/100 of the IBM – another point awarded for this unit in the corporate environment.
Coming in only slightly cheaper, there's not too much of a saving to be found here, but there's definitely extra value in the inclusions of GBE and the AGP slot.
A great little desktop workstation, this would be an asset to any corporation, with its almost unlimited upgradeability.