Subj : Lenovos latest cheap gaming PC sports a surprising legacy biz tec To : All From : TechnologyDaily Date : Tue Mar 28 2023 04:00:03 Lenovos latest cheap gaming PC sports a surprising legacy biz tech - from the 1980s Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 02:42:01 +0000 Description: A VGA port on a gaming desktop PC launched in 2023? No, youre not hallucinating FULL STORY ====================================================================== Lenovos latest LOQ gaming PC , the Tower 17IRB8, features a port that was a favorite amongst businesses, the venerable VGA port. Yes, a gaming PC, launched in March 2023, has a connector that was released in 1987 when a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels was considered bleeding edge. As a legacy port, Video Graphics Array is still popular with businesses and organizations of all sizes for a number of reasons, mostly to do with the adage, if it aint broke, dont try to fix it . Theres no reliable data available but there are still thousands of working CRT or LCD monitors and business projectors that have a VGA connector (and still a 4:3 aspect ratio), up to a resolution of 20481536 pixels. That said, whether Lenovo is aiming for that particular audience remains to be seen. We dont believe that is the case; it is likely that its just a matter of using whats available, a motherboard destined for business PC , a belief further reinforced by the fact that the Tower 17IRB8 supports Windows 11 Pro , can house two full size hard disk drives (remember those), has four USB 2.0 ports (yet another technology from the last millennia) and what looks like standard audio capabilities (a single audio connector). Lenovo also bundled two software applications prosumers and SMB will find helpful: Vantage and Smart Storage; the first one is a driver updater combined with a system utilities and a basic internet security software while the second one is a backup software for your smartphone or tablet, one that mimics cloud storage but uses your PC to save data (you may perhaps use it for hosting a website but we havent tried that). A boring workstation disguised as a gaming PC Looking more closely at Lenovos portfolio, one can see that the Tower 17IRB8 is rather similar to the Intel-based SMB-friendly IdeaCentre 5i, albeit bigger and heavier; the IdeaCentre 5i is also known as the 14IRB8 - 14 standing for 14 liters. Both accept 13th generation Core i7 processors but pair them with DDR4 memory (not DDR5), both use HDMI 1.4b (which only supports 4K at 30Hz) alongside VGA. It absolutely makes sense for Lenovo to buy motherboards with as many features as possible and use them in as many models as possible. Thats what economies of scale is all about and further highlights the cold, harsh reality of a depressed global computing market. Business and consumer audiences are overlapping more than ever before: its only after sales support, the warranty and bundled operating system that often separate the two. Expect even more models to launch with that split personality syndrome. ====================================================================== Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/lenovos-latest-cheap-gaming-pc-sports-a-surpris ing-legacy-biz-tech-from-the-1980s --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64) * Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100) .