Desktops

Acer Veriton L4610G: Great Steps Forward, but a Few Steps Back

At a Glance

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Acer Veriton L4610G-U15249W

The Veriton L4610 is small and speedy, but it can't quite best some of Acer's older models.

Businesses looking for small, quick desktop PCs would do well to check out Acer's Veriton line. The Acer Veriton L4610G is a slim, reasonably powerful machine that will fit anywhere and do just about anything that your business might need. Nevertheless, last year's Acer Veriton X498G seems like a better deal.

Our review model, priced at $699 (as of June 3, 2011), packs a 2.5GHz Core i5-2400S processor, 4GB of RAM (upgradable to 8GB), and 320GB of hard-drive space. The system also features a tray-loading DVD slot, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, and runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

The Veriton L4610G is housed in a matte black-and-gray plastic chassis. The chassis is small--much smaller than the towers of most mainstream desktop PCs--measuring 9.84 inches tall by 8.07 inches long by 2.44 inches thick. You can orient the machine upright on the included stand, or lay it on its side (the right side of the machine has four rubber feet).

The Veriton L4610G's design isn't anything special, though Acer obviously tried to mix it up a little: The front of the machine is split into three parts--one gray, one silver, and one black. The Veriton L4610G has some angular touches, too, including a slim, octagonal stand. The front of the machine holds a power button and a few convenience ports--headphone/microphone jacks and four USB 2.0 ports.

The remaining ports--four additional USB ports, a VGA port, a DVI port, a gigabit ethernet port, an LPT printer port, and a COM1 serial port--occupy the back of the machine, which also accommodates a Kensington lock port, input/ouput jacks, and another microphone jack.

The Veriton L4610G ships with a three-button optical mouse and a keyboard. Both are basic, Acer-branded, USB-wired peripherals with no special touches. The keyboard has wide, flat keys and gives little feedback, though it does have edicated buttons for volume controls (mute/up/down) and a sleep button.

In PCWorld Labs' WorldBench 6 benchmark tests, the Veriton L4610G received a score of 125--not terribly high for a mainstream desktop PC, but satisfactory considering the unit's compact size. By comparison, the consumer-oriented HP Pavilion Elite HPE -235f earned a WorldBench 6 score of 114. The Acer Veriton X498G, on the other hand, collected a WorldBench 6 score of 129.

Its WorldBench 6 score notwithstanding, the Veriton L4610G turned in a barely playable frame rate of 39.4 frames per second on our Unreal Tournament 3 game test at medium-quality settings and a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. Though we don't give gaming specs much weight in appraising business machines, the low frame rate indicates that this isn't a good machine for graphics-intensive work.

The Veriton L4610G's included software is pretty basic. The optional 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional lets you use all 4GB of your installed RAM. You also get Acer's utility suite, which includes a backup manager, an "eRecovery" manager, an updater, and a 38-page user guide.

The Acer Veriton L4610G is small, inexpensive, and well-connected; but it's slightly slower than last year's Veriton X498G, has fewer USB ports, and offers less storage. The L4610G trumps the X498G by offering a newer Sandy Bridge processor, but the difference in clock speeds ultimately leads to marginally slower general performance. That said, finding a new Veriton X498G for sale isn't easy.

Like most other models in Acer's Veriton line, the L4610 should meet the needs of most business users just fine. If you're looking for a little more (and are willing to pay for it), check out the rest of our business desktop PCs lineup.