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Now that Lenovo has taken the reins of IBM's PC business, what changes are in store for the company's venerable desktops? If the ThinkCentre A52 is any indication, not manyDesigned for small and medium-size businesses, our $1,363 review system, which still bore an IBM logo on the boxes and the hardware, demonstrated the same attention to quality as its predecessorsParticularly noteworthy are its expansion-friendly design, smart security and backup features, and versatile LCD monitorEven though IBM is out of the picture, the legacy lives on

We tested the tower model; Lenovo also offers desktop and small-form-factor chassis, which might be more desirable for space-crunched cubiclesLike IBM units of yore, the all-black ThinkCentre A52 has a stark, industrial lookThe tower, based on a BTX design, measures roughly 17 inches high and 16 inches deep--not exactly compactOn the plus side, it offers ample room for expansionPop open the push-button-release side panel, and you'll find three available RAM slots, two PCI slots, and an unused 5.25-inch drive bayAll the bays offer tool-free access, and we found it relatively quick and easy to pop out any drives that might need replacing

The system serves up eight USB 2.0 ports (six in back, two in front)--a surprising number for a business systemUsers of older printers and accessories will appreciate the inclusion of both serial and parallel ports--increasingly rare, even in business PCsLenovo even goes so far as to include a floppy disk driveWe would prefer a media-card reader, but that's not an available option

You can, however, customize just about everything elseNot all small-business users will need a double-layer DVD burner such as the one in our review systemBuyers can shave $90 off the price by opting for a plain CD-ROM drive, or $50 for a CD-RW driveThe A52's standard configuration--a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 640 processor, 512MB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM, an 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, and an ATI Radeon X300 video card--will satisfy most business usersLikewise, the tower's built-in speaker is suitable for everyday business audio, though external speakers are always an optionThose who need more or less computing power can opt for a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 630 or a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 650If you want other processors, the ThinkCentre A51 model offers several more choices, all the way down to a 2.6GHz Celeron D 331

Business users are usually more interested in features and stability than in blazing speedThat's a good thing, because the ThinkCentre A52 performs about one processor step down from where we expectedIts performance is more than adequate for business users, but its use of integrated graphics holds it back from matching the score of the Sony VAIO RB44G, which uses the same Pentium 4 640 chip and a budget ATI Radeon X300 graphics card and twice the memoryThe Radeon X300 video card represents a sizable improvement over the integrated Intel graphics chips found in most business systems, and it could prove helpful in graphics and multimedia applicationsIn the end, the ThinkCentre A52's SysMark score of 180 was roughly 7 percent slower than that of other systems we've tested this year with the Pentium 4 640 chipIt performs more like a system using a Pentium 4 630 processor, such as the Gateway 832GM

Ideal for customer-service environments, Lenovo's ThinkVision L171p 17-inch LCD monitor can swivel, raise, and pivot, though you'll need to install an included software utility if you want to operate Windows in portrait modeThe onscreen controls can be a bit confusing, and we're disappointed that Lenovo didn't provide a DVI cable, as both the monitor and the video card have DVI ports in addition to standard VGA connectionsAlthough the L171p delivered a sharp picture overall, text exhibited a slight glow--an effect a DVI connection would likely eliminate

Lenovo supplies some decidedly business-friendly security and utility softwareIn addition to Norton AntiVirus 2005 (a 90-day trial subscription), the ThinkCentre includes IBM's Client Security Solution (a data-encryption utility tied to an embedded security chip) and ThinkVantage Rescue And RecoveryThe latter is a robust utility for backing up and recovering files and systemsYou access it by pressing F11 when you boot, meaning that it bypasses Windows--and any problems Windows may be experiencingThe utility even enables Web accessThese features go above and beyond what we've seen in other recent small-business systems

The ThinkCentre's complete lack of printed documentation will disappoint fans of instruction manualsLikewise, Lenovo skips recovery and OS CDs in favor of the aforementioned Rescue And Recovery utility, which, admittedly, is a faster and more versatile solutionSave for the warranty booklet, there's absolutely nothing in the box except the hardwareLenovo's support is below average for a business system: a one-year parts-and-labor warranty that includes next-business-day onsite service and 24/7 toll-free phone supportYou can bump the coverage to three years for $132, but business systems from Gateway and Dell include three years of support by default