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Lenovo describes the IdeaCentre B500 as a “Gaming all-in-one”. Sadly, this means it’s been cursed with the sort of styling that manufacturers believe appeals to gamers: lots of angular bits, some brushed-metal-effect plastic and rather more orange than we’re comfortable with.
Fortunately, when you’re looking at it head-on your attention is diverted to the large, bright 23in widescreen with its 1,920×1,080 Full HD resolution. It’s not a touchscreen, but its superb image quality makes it a pleasure to use. We were particularly impressed by the display’s clean whites and accurate skin tones. It’s not entirely evenly lit – our black screen test revealed a lighter area running along the edge of the bottom bezel. We were pleasantly surprised by the integrated speakers, which were clear on even complex tracks with well-defined bass. If you want to connect external speakers, you’re limited to 2.1 sound, though – there are only two 3.5mm stereo ports for your mic input and a pair of speakers or headphones.
Although the B500 has a fairly comprehensive specification, including a TV tuner, integrated dual-band wireless adaptor, S-Video AV input and six USB ports, its processor is underwhelming. It has an LGA775 motherboard with an Intel G41 chipset, which houses an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400. In the fast-evolving world of processors, the Q8400 is an antique, having been superseded by Intel’s Core i3, i5, and i7 chips. That said, the IdeaCentre still managed an Overall score of 98 in our benchmark tests – faster than most gaming laptops, and rivalling desktops we’ve seen at around £500.
If you want to play 3D games, what really counts is your graphics card. In this case, that’s an ATI Radeon HD 5570. It’s not blisteringly fast, but does an adequate job on most games. We got a score of 27.4fps in CoD4, which can be tweaked to provide completely smooth gaming. Crysis is more of a challenge. At 1,680×1,050 we recorded a sluggish 14fps, and we were unable to obtain a playable frame rate by dropping the resolution. The 5570 is a good multimedia card, though, capable of playing Blu-Ray discs if you have an external drive. It can even upscale DVDs to a full 1080p resolution.
The B500 comes with a matched wireless Bluetooth mouse, keyboard and Windows Media Center remote control set. The mouse is compact but comfortable. The keyboard looks more like a laptop layout than a standard desktop keyboard, but has a full character set and numeric keypad. The remote control can be used as an air mouse if you wish to navigate your desktop from the sofa.
The B500 is a surprisingly effective jack-of-all-trades. You can use it as a TV, watch DVDs on it, play less demanding 3D games or just browse the web. It’s easy to use and we even got used to the orange-and-chrome styling. However, for £850, you can get a vastly more powerful desktop PC. If you’re short on space and need a PC to fit into a student bedsit, this is easily the most useful all-in-one we’ve seen. If space isn’t an issue, we recommend buying a bigger and more powerful PC.
