Reviews

Dell Vostro 460 review

The first Sandy Bridge PC from a major manufacturer is finally here. Kat Orphanides takes a closer look at the Dell Vostro 460 to see if it's a computer worthy of widespread deployment.

31 Mar 2011

The 500GB hard disk that our test system came with is more than adequate for most office users. Once again, it's not the default option, so you'll have to select it yourself if you need more space than is provided by the default 320GB drive. The latter costs 30 less, though, and is worth a look if your office depends more on networked rather than local storage. You're in luck if you do want to connect external storage. There are four USB2 ports at the front, alongside a memory card reader that can handle almost every format we can think of, plus another four USB2 ports and an eSATA port at the back.

The PC also comes with Dell's usual one-year collect and return warranty, plus a 15-month licence for Trend Micro's Worry-Free Business Security Services. It includes features such as POP3 spam filtering, highly effective anti-malware, and device control that allows you to lock down USB drives and email to prevent sensitive data from going for a walk.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

At £569 excluding VAT and shipping, the Vostro 460 is a decent PC. Its processor is massively powerful and it has everything it needs for shining performance in any application that doesn't require high-end 3D graphics processing. We also appreciate having a decent security suite thrown in. However, the case looks and feels rather cheap, and we weren't at all happy with the level of fan noise and vibration. Although the Vostro 460 is fast, unless you need to deploy powerful desktop PCs right away, you'd do better to wait for a more competitively priced and better designed Sandy Bridge system from one of Dell's rival OEMs.

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500, 3.3GHz Memory: 4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM Graphics: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5450 Hard disk: 500GB hard disk Optical drive: DVD+/-RW +/-DL Display: none included Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet Ports: 2 x front USB2, 4 x rear USB2, 1 x rear eSATA, 1 x HDMI and 1 x VGA output, 3.5mm headphone and microphone audio sockets, 4 x SATA II Slots and bays: 1 x PCI Express x16, 3 x PCI Express x1, 2 x 5.25in bay, 3 x 3.5in bays Dimensions: 175x445x363mm (WxDxH) Warranty: 1 year collect and return warranty OS: Windows 7 Professional 32/64-bit POWER CONSUMPTION Standy: 2W Idle: 43W Active: 90W BENCHMARKS Image-Editing 179 Video-Editing 188 Multitasking 147 Overall 172 CoD4 12.5fps