Lab

Business PCs

Major technology changes don't happen all that often, but as we've seen with this year's round-up of notebooks for business, the past year has seen a couple of significant developments, which means benefits that your company's current machines almost certainly lack.

The first is dual-core Intel CPUs. AMD's dual-core Athlon 64 X2 has been around on the consumer side of things for a fair while, but only a handful have made their way into business PCs. The introduction of the Core 2 Duo means there's a far greater choice of manufacturers offering dual-core corporate desktops now and, in turn, this means faster, more responsive PCs. While Dell and Lenovo sent us AMD-based PCs, the other five manufacturers all plumped for the Core 2 Duo.

One reason why the Core 2 Duo is more popular is because it's a requirement for vPro. Like Centrino or Viiv, vPro is Intel's business platform that demands certain hardware components including the Q965 Express chipset and Gigabit Ethernet. vPro makes it cheaper to maintain and monitor your machines. Part of vPro is AMT (Active Management Technology), which allows administrators to access machines that are switched off or where the OS has crashed. It cuts down on the number of desk-side visits needed and means PCs can be updated or inventoried while users are working, without disturbing them.

Total cost of ownership is important, but it isn't the only consideration. Performance, expansion, quietness and environmental impact are all important factors, and we've addressed all of these. You'll find benchmark results on the opposite page, and detailed specifications on p100. With a range of prices from £350 to £600, read on to find out which PC you should be equipping your staff with.