Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p ($1,180 direct) is one of those utilitarian-looking, ubiquitous business desktops that seem to be on the desks of a lot of workers across the United States and around the world. There's a good reason for that: The Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p (which we reviewed in its Ultra Small Form Factor, or USFF, chassis) is a workhorse that is easy to service, easy to deploy, and ultimately a vital business tool for your office workers. It has a little extra expandability to help with legacy projects that require an old-school PCI card slot, but its modern Intel CPU with built-in graphics means it also looks forward technology-wise. It's good enough to slot in as our next Editors' Choice for enterprise-class business PCs, though you can also buy it for medium-sized businesses that are growing.

Design and Features
The ThinkCentre M91p's exterior matches that of the previous Lenovo ThinkCentre M90p USFF ($1,158 direct, 4 stars), from its no-nonsense enterprise chassis to its tray-loading DVD drive. Like the M90p, the M91p is easy to open, easy to service, and easy to deploy. These traits, common among enterprise class PCs, are evident in the M91p's Kensington lock port, blue-colored grab handles for the serviceable parts, quick-swap hard drive, Intel vPro certification, and ThinkVantage utilities to help the IT manager handle company desktops. The system has eight USB 2.0 ports; faster USB 3.0 or eSATA ports are not present. Access ports are limited to the front and back surfaces of the system, which makes it easier to mount under a desk on in a cubby hole. The system uses an external AC adapter, which is less convenient than a standard three-prong cord, but AC adapters are pretty common for USFF systems. There's a DisplayPort jack on the back, for new business-class monitors, and a VGA port for old-school displays.

The system has a decent amount of internal room for a USFF PC. The top of the case pops open by pushing a blue tab on the back panel, and the whole chassis opens clamshell-style to present the system's compact motherboard. It has full-size optical and hard drives, but concedes to using SO-DIMM memory cards for upgrades (SO-DIMMs are more compact than full-sized DIMM cards, and share parts with your company's laptops). There's space and a slot for a PCI card, in case your business still uses specialized hardware that doesn't work with USB. Last but not least, there's an extra internal SATA port, so you could theoretically put in a SATA-to-eSATA adapter. The build quality feels rock solid, and the system hinges together so well that it's easy to service. These two qualities are rarely seen together on a business PC. USFF PCs have traditionally been difficult to service, thanks to the cramped quarters inside the chassis. The M91p is laid out so well that a simple replacement should take only seconds, and the more complex motherboard only a few minutes. Ease of serviceability should reduce downtime significantly.

Because the ThinkCentre M91p is an enterprise-class system, you can order it with a variety of Windows 7 operating systems, from 32-bit Home Basic to 64-bit Professional (like our test unit). The system supports disk images under the Intel Stable Image Platform Program, so you can create a single image for your USFF and tower PCs. Your IT folk can create an image with your site-licensed copy of Office, other apps, anti-malware, and management software preloaded. Our system came with a vanilla software load, including Lenovo's ThinkVantage utilities, Skype, Office 2010 Starter, and a 30-day trial for Norton Internet Security. Thankfully, most of that software was included only as installer programs, so you don't have to worry about the programs leaving detritus all over your system if you remove them.

Performance
The basic improvement in the M91p over the M90p is the inclusion of a new Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5-2500S processor in place of the older Clarkdale i5-660. The i5-2500S has the latest-generation built-in Intel HD Graphics 2000, and along with the system's 4GB of memory, gives the M91p the legs it needs to last your company more than a few years. The M91p took a spritely 1 minute 21 seconds to complete our Handbrake video conversion test and 3:12 to finish our 12-step Photoshop CS5 test. For comparison, the Core i7-2600?powered Dell Optiplex 990 ($1,905 direct, 3.5 stars) is a bit quicker (1:11 in Handbrake, 2:57 in CS5) thanks to its more powerful quad-core processor, though of course it's quite a bit more expensive. Closer in price and performance is the HP 8200 Elite USDT ($869 direct, 4 stars), which uses the same Core i5-2500S as the M91p, and achieves similar results (1:21 in Handbrake, 3:16 in CS5). Likewise, the M91p's PCMark 7 score of 2,558 is one of the better ones we've seen on a business PC, handily beating the HP (2,190) and in striking distance of the Dell (2,601). This means that the M91p is fast enough to last the four to five years you'd expect from a new business PC.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p is an excellent USFF PC, with a little expansion room and excellent build quality. It's certainly fast enough for most office-based tasks short of 3D and other specialized graphics work. Our last enterprise-class business PC Editors' Choice was the Dell Optiplex 780 Ultra Small Form Factor ($1,484 direct, 4 stars); the Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p is two generations faster on the processor front, and just a smidge bigger. Dell continues that form factor in its Optiplex 790 and 990 lines. The M91p can keep up with the Optiplex 990 configured as a tower, so it's reasonable to surmise that the M91p will likewise perform much like an Optiplex 990 USFF with similar components. The HP 8200 Elite USDT is a USFF, but it's less expandable than the M91p (it can't house a PCI card), it uses more expensive laptop-class hard and optical drives, and its MXM graphics card slot severely limits your discrete video choices. Thanks to its features, performance, good price point, serviceability, and sturdiness, the ThinkCentre M91p replaces the Dell Optiplex 780 USFF as our enterprise-class business PC Editors' Choice.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p with several other desktops side by side.

More desktop reviews:
??? Dell XPS 8300 (X8300-7008NBK)
??? HP Compaq 8200 Elite USDT
??? Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p
??? HP TouchSmart 620-1080 3D
??? Sony VAIO VPC-L231FX/W
?? more

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