Lenovo Announces Inexpensive Green Desktop PC

Lenovo on Thursday announced the ThinkCentre A62, a Green desktop PC that's designed to be stingy in both watts and dollars.

The $399 desktop will ship in October. The A62 can also be paired with the low-power ThinkVision L197w 19-inch monitor, an EPEAT Gold certified display that retails for $239.

Since the A62 is a business PC, Lenovo included remote-management and recovery technologies, as well as low-cost technologies. Selected models include the 15-watt Athlon 2650e business-class processor; by including it, Lenovo cut the ThinkCentre's power by 40 percent compared with the previous generation. Based on the AMD's business-class processor, Lenovo can also assure its customers of a 15-month stability cycle.

The desktop also comes with the Dash 1.1 remote management tool and Express Repair, designed to help the system recover from a variety of errors. As expected, the desktop also includes the Thinkvantage suite of Lenovo-supplied utilities.

Source:pcmag.com
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Akhter launches green all-in-one PCs

UK computer manufacturer Akhter has launched a range of all-in-one desktop systems, aimed primarily at the business and education market, which it says can consume just 55 Watts, up to a third that of older PCs, whilst using Intel Core 2 Duo processors clocked at 3GHz.

According to Akhter, the new systems, branded LoCO2 PC, comply with the US Energy Star 4.0 benchmark, a joint program set up by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to standardise energy-efficient products and practices.

"Everyone wants to claim they care about the environment and nobody wants to be seen to be wasting power," said Akhter's marketing manager Geoff Pick. "Our systems can save businesses significant amounts of money."

There are seven models in Akhter's LoCO2 range, from the E1400, running Intel Celeron Dual Core Conroe processors at 2GHz and costing £539 + VAT, to the high-end E8400, running Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale processors at 3.0GHz and costing £630 + VAT.

"In a typical office situation, put a LoCO2 in to replace a desktop PC or a Tower and you may save £100 a year per PC. If your office still uses CRT displays, you could save a lot more in a worse-case scenario if they're left on 24 x 7," added Pick.

Pick also pointed out that there were some firms targeting the education market who had Energy Star 4.0-rated systems, but were using processors more energy-efficient than those used in Akhter's new systems, like Intel's Atom. " Some firms are touting Energy Star 4.0 compliance using processors running under 2.0GHz, whilst we've achieved it with 3.0GHz chips."

Pick also gave details on measurements the firm had made on the energy efficiency of Microsoft's Windows operating systems. "Strangely enough, on the lower-end models using relatively older Intel technology, Windows XP appears to be more energy-efficient, whilst on high-end models using newer Intel technology, Vista appears to be more efficient," said Pick.

Source:whatpc.co.uk
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Tangent Launches Green Power-Efficient Computer

Tangent a company that makes computers for fields like healthcare, business and education, has just rolled out a new computer model dubbed the “Evergreen 17.” The $1,195-computer has been designed from the ground up to be highly-efficient and uses 24 watts, or 72 percent less energy than the standards set by Energy Star 4.0. And we give it a few bonus points for it’s skinny sleek design that includes a touch-screen LCD and looks a bit like a black PC version of an iMac (though not as nice).

Making computers more efficient and running them on less energy will have a significant overall effect in fighting global warming — more than 2 percent of our carbon emissions are attributed to computing. Both computer makers like Tangent and Dell and startups like Verdiem, which makes PC energy-management software, have started introducing products to cut power-chugging from PCs.

All this is well and good, but looking at the specs on the Evergreen 17 is where things come up short. For starters, the Evergreen 17 comes with either a fan-less processor (a Via Eden 1.0 GHz) or with a low noise fan processor (ViaC7 1.50 GHz). It takes power to spin fans to cool machines, so if you can do without, you can use less energy; it also makes for a quieter, more enjoyable workspace. But with the only processor options at 1.0 GHz or 1.50 GHz, color us unimpressed. We know the target buyers are government and educational users, but we could get a faster computer almost anywhere.

You can also get the Evergreen 17 with an optional solid-state drive to provide a 100 percent solid-state system, which is nice, but it maxes out at 64GB — in a desktop machine that is kind of weak.

So, at least Tangent is moving in the right direction, green-wise, but they’ve got to give their new kid more power, or a lot of users could end up looking elsewhere. But we guess this is the dilemma of the new green computer — less power, means, well, less power.

Source:earth2tech.com
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Recycle your old computer equipment

Charlotte Street Computers has opened the Charlotte Street Computers Recycling Outlet, which is conveniently located at 101 S. Lexington Ave., downtown.

Charlotte Street Computers Recycling Outlet is a recycling drop-off location for a variety of recyclable electronic equipment, including desktop and laptop computers, monitors, networking equipment, servers, printers, computer mice and keyboards.

The Charlotte Street Computers Recycling Outlet is joining with Eblen Charities and A-B Tech to provide computers to the community, ensuring that computer literacy, and the doors that it opens, will be available to everyone.

Charlotte Street Computers Recycling Outlet will reduce the amount of waste in our landfills by re-using equipment instead of throwing it away, providing a new opportunity for growth in our community.

Charlotte Street Computers is a multi-location computer repair company and authorized Apple reseller that provides upgrades, networking, troubleshooting, and repairs for home computers and small business systems. The company also provides customers with one-on-one tutoring and rental computers for customers.

Charlotte Street Computers Recycling Outlet is open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

Source:citizen-times.com
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Samsung Releases 'Green' Handsets

Samsung Thursday released three environmentally-friendly handsets, using both "green" materials for their exteriors and recycled ones inside.

Samsung Electronics has released three environmentally friendly handsets, using "green" materials for their exteriors and recycled ones inside.

The plastic outer shell of the models -- the F268, released in China; the W510, for Korea; and the E200 Eco, for Europe -- is constructed of "bio-plastic" made from corn. Forty to 50 percent of all the plastic in the phone is bio-plastic, with the rest of the plastic required from traditional materials for rigidity, a Samsung spokesperson said Friday at the company's venue on the Olympic Green in Beijing. The phones' circuit boards lack brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chlorides, both toxic plastic materials. The F268 has a suggested retail price of 1800 yuan (AUD$300). All three will reach their intended markets next month.

The company is also developing micro fuel cells that would power handsets with hydrogen, and operates handset recycling programs for phones of all brands in Korea, China, the U.S. and Canada. Materials from these phones are recycled as much as possible and reused in the manufacture of new phones, Samsung said.

"Green Olympics" and "High-tech Olympics" are themes for the 2008 Beijing games.

Source:pcworld.idg.com.au
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Energy costs drive green tech takeup

Consumers and businesses are looking to green technology to help manage rising energy costs.

High energy costs have put power bills at the forefront the minds of consumers and business managers. Electronics makers that develop energy efficient product lines and market them effectively to customers may get an edge in a gloomy global economy, firms have said.

"Going green is not only eco-friendly but crucial for business," said Kim Jik-soo, a spokesman at LG Electronics. "This goes beyond just products, extending throughout the development and manufacturing process."

Electronics firms are furiously developing energy efficient products and heavily promoting lines already on the market that use less electricity than competitors' brands.

In the computing industry, power-saving has long been a key priority as bigger and hungrier gadgets challenge battery life.

PC makers from Apple to Lenovo are replacing screens lit by conventional cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) with light emitting diode (LED) displays.

"LED saves up to 40 per cent of the power used in traditional backlights," said Jeff Kim, an analyst at Hyundai Securities. "Next year they will be commonly found in notebook screens, and will be increasingly used in TV panels from 2010."

LG recently released its Flatron W2252TE, which it claimed is the most energy-efficient monitor available. For IT PRO's review, click here.

Market researcher DisplaySearch expects LED-backlit displays to account for 50 per cent of notebook panels in 2010, up from 12 per cent this year. By 2015, all laptop displays will use LEDs, generating sales of $6 billion (£3.1 billion).

But too often, these energy-efficient products carry a hefty price premium to reflect the cost of developing new technologies, which in turn hampers faster adoption.

A US survey by Forrester Research last year found that green consumers, who agree to pay extra for electronics that use less energy or come from an environmentally friendly maker, are more brand-loyal than average consumers.

"More than 25 million US adults fall into this segment, enough for even the largest consumer electronics marketers to target," Forrester analyst Christopher Mines said.

"Green-targeted PCs and other electronics will evolve as part of the consumer electronics industry's move to go beyond 'beige box' design," he said. "Apple certainly leads the way here."

A green-technology product that establishes new benchmarks and appeals to concerned consumers "will have an iconic market presence if done right," Mines added.

Source:itpro.co.uk
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LG PC Monitor Claimed To Be Worlds Greenest

According to reports, the LG Flatron W2252TE 22-inch LCD monitor, touted to be the world's most energy-efficient monitor has had its energy consumption measured and found to be 19.4 watt--a figure is less than half of what a Dell or Acer monitor consumes, which is about 45-50 watts approximately.

According to the specs, the Flatron monitor carries features such as colour and brightness tweaking via onscreen menus, black bezel, and slightly above average visual quality, including support for a maximum screen resolution of 1680x1050, along with the standard DVI and VGA ports.

The push by vendors for 'green computing' and 'energy-efficient' systems has hit all the main vendors and they have all to varying degrees improved their products and made them eco-friendly.

However apart from marketing hype and strategic brand positioning, any proper and effective implementation of 'green computing' principles on the assembly line would take another couple of years, according to a number of reports.

smarthouse.com.au
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