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Dell Vostro 460: Business PC Is All Work, No Play

14.03.2011
The Dell Vostro 460 is a speedy equipped with Intel's recently launched Sandy Bridge processor. It starts at $529 (as of March 10, 2011), but our review configuration--which came with a 21.5-inch widescreen monitor--is priced at $1393 ($1163 sans monitor). The system we reviewed packs a decent feature set, including an Intel Core i7-2600 processor, 4GB of RAM (upgradable to 16GB), and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Designwise, the Vostro 460 is nothing special; it's housed in a black plastic minitower case with a smooth, simple front. This is par for the course for machines aimed at small businesses, which tend to eschew the fancier designs of consumer models. The front of the minitower sports a shiny Dell logo above a small, silver power button, as well as a door that slides down to reveal four USB ports, one USB 3.0 port, and headphone and microphone jacks. The PC also has a DVD drive, as well as an additional unoccupied optical bay with a preinstalled eject button.

The rear of the machine offers an additional five USB ports (four USB and one USB 3.0), an eSATA port, an S/PDIF-out, gigabit ethernet, 7.1 surround sound, a VGA connector, and an HDMI connector. That's right: This desktop has no discrete graphics card, and Dell is relying on the Sandy Bridge processor's improved integrated graphics to hold the fort.

The keyboard and mouse are simple and match the chassis; both peripherals are, unfortunately, wired (USB). The flat keyboard features matte-black keys that offer good feedback. Since the keys are smooth, typing quickly is a little difficult if you're unaccustomed to the shape; the keys are widely spaced, however, making typing errors a little less likely. The two-button mouse is smooth, rounded, and comfortable to use, though it did feel somewhat small to me (and I have small hands).

Our test model came with a 21.5-inch widescreen monitor. As displays go it's fairly matte, with a 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution and good contrast. Its off-axis angles are not very good for a matte screen, but at least it doesn't throw reflections back at you. The display is a little too wide for my taste (note that this monitor is nearly twice as long as it is high), but that's a matter of personal preference. The monitor has a black, squared-off bezel with sharp corners, and lacks a Webcam. Five small buttons--a power button plus four context-sensitive soft keys to adjust the monitor's settings--sit along the lower-right side.

As for performance, the Vostro 460 does well for its category. It earned a WorldBench 6 score of 156, which puts it just above our second-best performer, the (with a mark of 152). It's still pretty far behind our top performer in the mainstream-PC category, the , which received a WorldBench 6 score of 188.