Lenovo IdeaCentre B320

"A powerful entertainment PC for living rooms and crammed desks."

Lenovo IdeaCentre B320

For: Good build, great performance, well priced.
Against: Discrete graphics should have been more powerful.

The rear panel can be opened for upgrading crucial
components such as the RAM and storage drives.

The IdeaCentre B320 can easily be mistaken for an LCD TV, and that’s exactly what Lenovo has tried to do. With great aesthetics it can seamlessly blend with the interiors of your living room, bedroom or kitchen. Despite its compact design, it doesn’t compromise on features or performance. The variant of B320 that we received from Lenovo packs powerful hardware suited for an entertainment PC. It is powered by the Intel Core i3-2100 CPU along with 3 GB of RAM and offers 1 TB of storage, which is common in mainstream desktop PCs. Although the CPU features an integrated GPU, Lenovo has gone a step ahead and added the AMD Radeon HD 6450 discrete GPU with 1 GB of dedicated memory.
                The IdeaCentre B320 boasts a large 21.5-inch full HD display, which is great for watching movies. A pair of stereo speakers is housed within the grille below the display and a full HD webcam is located at the top. On the right, the only component you’ll find is a tray-loading DVD-writer. Two USB ports, a card reader and jacks for headphone and mic are placed on the left side. Four additional USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.0 port, an Ethernet port and a PS/2 port are placed on the rear. The USB 3.0 port should have ideally been placed on the side to easily connect external USB 3.0 storage devices. The design of the B320 is brilliant. It looks sleek and doesn’t consume too much desk space. We also like the provision of removable back panel for upgrading or replacing the hard drive, optical drive and memory. The PC comes with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse whose design and color go well with the PC. The keyboard sports a brushed metal-like finish and has a standard layout. It has a good tactile feel, but the [Fn] key at the bottom left corner can be annoying. The optical mouse features an ambidextrous design and offers good grip due to the rubber finish on the sides. The keyboard and mouse both use two AA batteries. 
                 The IdeaCentre B320 scored 6403 points in PCMark Vantage and 803 points in 3DMark 11 (Entry mode). The time taken to encode a 1 minute MPEG video to H.264 format was 60 seconds. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drive installed in the PC logged nearly 100 MB/sin sequential read and write tests. However, random read and write scores were quite average at around 50 MB/s. We tried running Crysis Warhead at 1920x1080 with minimal settings, but the Radeon HD 6450 GPU could only manage 23 fps. The speakers sound great thanks to SRS Premium Sound enhancement, which actually makes a big difference. A desktop PC with a similar configuration would definitely be cheaper, but here, you get everything in one package. It looks great and doesn’t occupy much space, making it a great option for small and crammed desks. This PC is an excellent option if you’re looking for a powerful panel PC for entertainment and casual gaming.


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Posted in: Pc, Test Centre