Until relatively recently, all-in-one nettops, with their netbook-like components, didn't make a whole lot of sense to us. After all, their 1.6GHz Intel Atom processors and meager RAM allotments (typically 1GB) make them incapable of handling much more than light productivity and Web browsing. Even smooth full-screen Flash video from YouTube or Hulu.com is beyond their capabilities. Since they've typically been priced well above $500, it's been hard to argue for these machines when all-in-ones with higher-resolution screens and much-more-capable components, such as the Dell Studio One 19 and the Lenovo IdeaCentre A600, start at just $700.
The recently released eMachines EZ1601-01 all-in-one nettop, with its $399 asking price, is inexpensive enough to make it an appealing alternative to more-expensive all-in-ones. But while that system looks bland and feels a bit cheap, the Lenovo C300 feels quite solid, and its design, while it won't appeal to all, certainly stands out from the Atom-powered all-in-one crowd. Considering the C300 also packs a larger, higher-resolution screen than any nettop we've seen and starts at just $450 (for the base configuration we tested, with a 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM), that's enough to make this machine a great choice for users with tight budgets and light computing needs. We just think a model without the floral-patterned speakers would have more universal appeal.
Aside from that bold speaker design, the 20-inch integrated screen is the most stunning part of the C300. It's bright and crisp, and with a generous 1,600x900-pixel native resolution, it outclasses anything else in this price range. Atom-powered all-in-ones typically sport 18.5-inch screens, with a native resolution of 1,366x768. While that might not seem like much of a difference, the 20-inch Lenovo screen has 414,000 more pixels, or about 40 percent more screen real estate than the average nettop screen. Considering this system also costs significantly less than most competing products, that's quite impressive. The front face also features a 1.3-megapixel Webcam and buttons for adjusting the screen brightness, switching off the screen, and powering the system on and off.
Also impressive is the selection of ports Lenovo included on the C300. The left side houses two USB ports, along with a flash-card reader (supporting SD, xD-PictureCard, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, and Memory Stick Pro media). A FireWire port hides around back, along with four additional USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet jack. Standard 802.11b/g Wi-Fi is also included. The right side holds a tray-loading DVD±RW drive. There's also a PS/2 port for the bundled keyboard; the mouse uses USB.
In testing, the Lenovo C300 wasn't stunning, but its performance was, for the most part, narrowly better than the eMachines EZ1601-01 and generally in line with other similarly equipped machines we've seen recently. In our CPU-taxing Cinebench 10 test, the C300 managed a score of 548, versus the eMachines' 545. On our Windows Media Encoder 9 test, the C300 finished in 23 minutes and 32 seconds, 6 seconds faster than the eMachines PC. The eMachines system managed to complete our iTunes test 10 seconds faster than the C300, which took 19 minutes and 50 seconds to convert our 11 test files to AAC format. The margins between these two PCs on these three tests are trivial.
What's more important is that in general, the eMachines system felt abnormally sluggish when launching programs. Despite having nearly identical specs and a larger screen, the C300 felt quite snappy compared with similar systems, perhaps thanks to its 7,200rpm hard drive. The C300 is by no means speedy compared with machines with even low-end traditional desktop processors, but for those who only edit documents, write e-mails, watch standard-definition video, and surf the Web, it's sufficient, provided you don't need to watch a lot of full-screen Web video. There, the C300 stutters, just like similar Atom-powered machines, because Flash video takes more CPU power than Intel's standard Atom can muster.
Also impressive is the selection of ports Lenovo included on the C300. The left side houses two USB ports, along with a flash-card reader (supporting SD, xD-PictureCard, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, and Memory Stick Pro media). A FireWire port hides around back, along with four additional USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet jack. Standard 802.11b/g Wi-Fi is also included. The right side holds a tray-loading DVD±RW drive. There's also a PS/2 port for the bundled keyboard; the mouse uses USB.
In testing, the Lenovo C300 wasn't stunning, but its performance was, for the most part, narrowly better than the eMachines EZ1601-01 and generally in line with other similarly equipped machines we've seen recently. In our CPU-taxing Cinebench 10 test, the C300 managed a score of 548, versus the eMachines' 545. On our Windows Media Encoder 9 test, the C300 finished in 23 minutes and 32 seconds, 6 seconds faster than the eMachines PC. The eMachines system managed to complete our iTunes test 10 seconds faster than the C300, which took 19 minutes and 50 seconds to convert our 11 test files to AAC format. The margins between these two PCs on these three tests are trivial.
What's more important is that in general, the eMachines system felt abnormally sluggish when launching programs. Despite having nearly identical specs and a larger screen, the C300 felt quite snappy compared with similar systems, perhaps thanks to its 7,200rpm hard drive. The C300 is by no means speedy compared with machines with even low-end traditional desktop processors, but for those who only edit documents, write e-mails, watch standard-definition video, and surf the Web, it's sufficient, provided you don't need to watch a lot of full-screen Web video. There, the C300 stutters, just like similar Atom-powered machines, because Flash video takes more CPU power than Intel's standard Atom can muster.
Specifications :
Processor
| Processor Class | Intel Atom 330 |
| Processor Speed | 1.6 GHz |
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