Lenovo C460 Review

The Lenovo C460 ($446.68 as tested) is a very affordable all-in-one desktop featuring a full HD (1,920-by-1080) display, a fourth-generation Pentium CPU, and a decent assortment of ports, including HDMI output. It lacks a touch screen and comes with a wired keyboard and mouse, but it’ll meet most of your home-productivity and multimedia needs and save you some desktop space along the way.

Design and Features
The C460 shares the same basic design as the more expensive Lenovo B50. All of the components are installed in the 16.9-by-20.1-by-2-inch (HWD) black cabinet. The system weighs 14.3 pounds and is supported by a boomerang-shape stand that lets you tilt the display forward five degrees and backward 25 degrees for optimal viewing.

The 21.5-inch screen has a non-reflective, anti-glare coating and a maximum resolution of 1,920 by 1,080, which means it can display HD content in 1080p. It delivers sharp image detail and good overall color quality, with wide viewing angles, but it does not offer the touch capability that you get with the Lenovo C260 Touch. On the other hand, the C260 Touch’s display maxes out at 1,600 by 900, and it’s a bit smaller at 19.5 inches.

There’s a built-in DVD multi-drive to the right side of the chassis, and there are several ports on the left side, including two USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and a 6-in-1 media card reader. A 720p webcam is embedded in the display’s upper bezel, and a pair of 3-watt speakers are attached to the bottom bezel. The speakers are full-sounding and can be cranked up without distorting.

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A wireless mouse and keyboard combo would be go nicely with this system, but the C460 ships with a USB keyboard and mouse instead, which creates a bit of a cable cluster behind the cabinet. Rear-mounted I/O ports include four USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI output, a Power jack, and a gigabit LAN port. Wireless networking includes 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, but the Wi-Fi only works on the 2.4GHz frequency band.

The C460 comes with a 500GB hard drive that spins at 7,200rpm. It has 64-bit Windows 8.1 installed, as well as several Lenovo-branded apps, including Lenovo Reach (cloud service) and Lenovo Companion (system management). It also comes with Cyberlink’s MediaStory and Power2Go, trial versions of McAfee Internet Security and Microsoft Office 365, and the usual eBay, Amazon, and Zinio tiles on the Start screen. Lenovo covers the desktop with a one-year warranty.

Performance
The C460’s 2.8GHz Intel Pentium G3250T dual-core processor, paired with 4GB of RAM, helped the system deliver a respectable PCMark 8 Work Conventional score of 2,589 points, beating the Lenovo C260 (1,783) by around 800 points and the Gateway ZX4270-UB31( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (1,254) by more than 1,300 points. The more expensive Lenovo B50 and its Intel Core i7 CPU led the pack with a score of 2,923.

Multimedia performance was a mixed bag. It needed 7 minutes 21 seconds to complete our Handbrake encoding test, which is more than 2 minutes slower than the Lenovo C260 (5:04) and just a few seconds slower than the Gateway ZX4270-UB31 (7:15). However, it finished our Photoshop CS6 test in 5:35, which is relatively quick when compared with the Lenovo C260 (12:36) and the Gateway ZX4270-UB31 (14:54). The midrange Lenovo B50 recorded times of 1:28 (Handbrake) and 4:23 (Photoshop CS6).

See How We Test Desktops

The integrated Intel HD Graphics had the C460 producing single-digit frame rates on our 3D gaming tests, which shows that the system isn’t suited to hardcore gaming. However, you should be able to play casual games.

Conclusion
If you only have $450 to spend on a family desktop, put the Lenovo C460 All-In-One Desktop on your short list. Its 21.5-inch screen delivers sharp 1080p video, and its Pentium processor provides more than enough power for basic computing tasks. It’ll even handle light multimedia encoding projects, but not as quickly as its more expensive midrange stablemate, the Lenovo B50. The lack of a touch screen is disappointing, as is the lack of wireless input devices, but there are sacrifices to be made at this price. If touch-screen support is what you need, the Lenovo C260 Touch, our Editors’ Choice for entry-level all-in-one PCs, has it, but it also has a list price that’s about $35 more, and it lacks a 1080p display.