Friday, August 22, 2014
Lenovo C260 reconsider: This inexpensive all-in-one PC performs other like a tablet
The superlative all-in-one PCs bundle solid desktop skin texture in the sphere of a silky display—no unsightly tower vital. But for the reason that they include a demonstrate, they often cost a allotment other than traditional desktops, a hindrance Lenovo seeks to take in hand with its C260 all-in-one, a 19.5-incher which goes in favor of $480 (Amazon was promotion this typical in favor of $450 the same as of this writing).
The C260 is delightful sufficient to look by the side of. It’s compact, with a medium-sized black bezel surrounding its 10-point touchscreen (at this fee you don’t really expect the edge-to-edge goblet we see to it that in the sphere of higher-end models). And by the side of at the outset glance, its countenance list—which includes four USB ports, gigabit ethernet, HDMI dazed, a DVD burner, and an integrated 720p webcam—sounds first-class.
Frankly, we'd maintain happily traded the optical drive in favor of better wireless networking hardware and other USB 3.0 ports.
But you acquire what did you say? You give in favor of, and the C260 skimps in the sphere of many ways to complete its low fee. It might be present acceptable in favor of someone with actually token computing needs—email, light net browsing, or else unpretentious word-processing tasks—but others strength of character locate by the side of smallest amount a little of the many compromises maddening.
Catcall! There's recently single USB 3.0 docks, and rebuff HDMI input in favor of linking a videogame console or else set-top box.
Performance is the obvious preliminary indicate. Powered by a Pentium J2900 CPU with integrated Intel HD graphics (the hottest local office on Intel’s Bay Trail people tree) and 4GB of DDR3/160 remembrance, the C260 eked dazed a dismal Desktop WorldBench 9 gain of 28, despite having a relatively fast, but low-capacity intense drive. It’s lone 500GB, but it spins its serving dish by the side of 7200 rpm (we’ve seen all too many inexpensive PCs with 5400-rpm drives).
The Lenovo C260 produced single of the nearly everyone feeble Desktop WorldBench 9 scores on video.
Granted, our 100-point baseline PC consists of an Intel focal point i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, discrete graphics and a solid-state drive, but very hardly any of the PCs we’ve tested maintain scored lower than 50. The Pentium computer chip, which lacks hyperthreading, likely is the main culprit, although the token amount of RAM combined with integrated graphics almost certainly contributes the same as well (the logic can be present upgraded to 8GB of memory).
Intel's Pentium J2900 CPU might be present better suited to a tablet than a desktop PC.
This is not a section you’d poverty to depletion in favor of multitasking, which would sternly challenge its remembrance property. Even YouTube videos with lots of movement showed secret language of strain, plus pixelation. I in addition found touchscreen response to be present a lesser amount of than snappy.
The YouTube issues, however, could in addition relate to one more large drawback: The unit’s Wi-Fi client adapter is a 1x1 typical with the aim of ropes lone 2.4GHz, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. A 1x1 adapter like this can support recently single spatial jet in favor of transmission and single in favor of receiving. This adapter is in addition restricted to operating on the very crowded 2.4GHz spectrum, which strength of character be present problematic in the sphere of environments someplace lots of other wireless networks are operating.
A halfway decent wired baby grand is better than a crummy wireless single, but did I talk about this structure needs other USB 3.0 ports. Oh well, by the side of smallest amount it has gigabit Ethernet.
That’s why we commend using the a lesser amount of crowded 5GHz frequency strip in favor of media streaming (most PCs we reconsider these days are outfitted with adapters with the aim of support both the 2.4- and the 5GHz bands, and fresh models increasingly support the earlier 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard). Somebody tiresome to jet media would be present well advised to depletion this computer’s hardware gigabit ethernet docks.
You'll be present restricted to the in performance very unpretentious tackle on this all-in-one.
Near are other irritants the same as well: Lone single of the C260’s four USB ports ropes USB 3.0—the others import lone slower USB 2.2 links. And if not you give add-on to upgrade to a wireless baby grand and mouse, two of folks four ports strength of character be present occupied by the wired peripherals with the aim of approach with the section.
The C260’s audio sounded OK, and its webcam worked fine in favor of Skype calls. But multitaskers, colonize who depend on Wi-Fi in favor of streaming media, and somebody seeking tools in favor of every computationally intensive bring about ought to seek a other powerful logic.
