1.jpg (53.72 KB. 484x425 - viewed 3 times.)Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 is a all-in-one desktop that brings complete home entertainment features in an elegant compact package, it sports an angular design with machine cut speaker grills that are inspired from the Halo, the machine itself has a small footprint that allows for space saving and at the same time provides ample power for your computing and entertainment needs. We recently got our hands on the machine, lets have a look at the review results after the break.
Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 Hardware Specifications
23” Full HD Widescreen Display
Intel Core2Duo E7500 2.93GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M 1GB Graphics Card
640GB Hard Drive
DVD Reader/Writer
JBL 2.0 Speakers, 2 x 5W RMS
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth
TV Tuner and Remote
Integrated Camera and Mic
6-in-1 Card Reader, headphone and microphone jack
Ports: 6 USB 2.0, 1 RJ45, PS/2 and AV IN.
Design and Build Quality
2.jpg (43.07 KB. 501x430 - viewed 3 times.)IdeaCentre B500 sports a refreshing slim form factor for a desktop and has been designed keeping the modern lifestyles in mind. The build quality feels solid, the choice of colors and the metallic finish below the screen gives it a unique look. There are also six touch sensitive buttons at the bezel for LED light, volume, brightness and for turning off the display.
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4.jpg (14.53 KB. 221x240 - viewed 3 times.)Card Reader, headphone and earphone jack along with two USB ports are conveniently placed at the left side of the bezel whereas the DVD Writer is on the right side, additional 4 USB ports, TV IN and Audio/Video ports are located behind the screen. The back stand is sturdy and at the same time allows for easily adjustable viewing angle.
Keyboard and Mouse
5.jpg (30.58 KB. 504x228 - viewed 3 times.)A set of wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse with batteries is bundled with the machine. Mouse works out of the box but you have to manually pair the BT keyboard once by going to Control Panel –> “Add a New Device” inside Windows 7. The Keyboard itself is light weight, its metallic design matches well with the desktop and the build quality is very good, typing is smooth and because of soft key presses touch typing is a joy on it.
Gaming Performance
IdeaCentre B500 is powered by the NVIDIA 240M graphics card which allows it to perform fairly well in the gaming segment, however it wouldn’t please the hardcore gaming fans that said most of the current generation games can be enjoyed on its big screen at decent settings.
We played GRID 2 at 1080p for the test and it delivered the following results :
Game settings - Average FPS
First run auto detect – 21.912
Low - 42.588 (No AA)
Medium - 23.276 (2x AA)
Ultra – 16.812 (4x AA)
The loading of the game was smooth and it was decently playable at medium settings.
Sound and Media Playback
Internal sound system is powered by high quality JBL speakers which provides nice all around sound for your music and movies needs, the loudness of these speakers is surprising given their small size, even at maximum volume the sound didn’t crack. These are just perfect for this kind of machine.
- HD Media Playback
B500 plays both 720p and 1080p media with ease, and because of its Full HD screen with 16:9 aspect ratio movies looks great, color reproduction is crisp however the black levels were a little on the lower side when compared to the IPS panels we have had access to. Media playback over Wi-Fi works well, we had no problem playing HD/Full HD movies over the Wi-Fi network.
TV Tuner and InfraRed Remote control
6.jpg (20.37 KB. 280x312 - viewed 3 times.)The machine we received for review came with a In-built TV Tuner and IR Remote Control using which you can control the Windows Media Center and some functions of the PC, you can even record live TV from the WMC using your remote to view later.
Operating System
The machine is powered by Windows 7 Home Premium which was optimized for enhanced performance by Lenovo, the startup and shutdown of the machine were a little faster but thats all about it. There were dual partition on the 640 GB hard drive, one 48.8 GB and the other with 522 GB, rest of the space was used by Windows 7 and for Lenovo Recovery.
