It must be said from the outset that we think the Veriton has missed its calling. While it's aimed at corporate use, with just a little bit of toying around this appealing little box could also make a damned impressive media centre. An HDMI port here, a decent graphics card there, a dual HD optical drive, remote and some wireless access and we'd be on our way.

Design
Missed opportunities aside, it does what it does well -- act as a business PC. Its small form factor (250mm by 200mm by 60mm) means it should suit most corporate environments, and the tastefully designed chassis should fit most decors as well. The front comes off as minimalist thanks to the slot loading DVD drive, with four USB ports, headphone/microphone jacks and the "on" button being the only other things present. While the PC initially arrives in a vertical configuration, the stand can be removed to lay it horizontally -- allowing it to double as a monitor stand, or to make it easy to stack multiple Veritons.

A grilled top and two small Sunon fans at the back help with airflow, as does the fact that the power has been split out into the mother of all power pack adaptors. It's not quite as bad as the Xbox 360, but still quite large. All this means that the Veriton, unlike the Xbox 360, is able to stay quite quiet.

Features
An extra four USB ports on the back should cover most enterprise connectivity (firewire users will have to look elsewhere), while video out is supplied on either DVI or VGA. While we doubt most corporations will make use of 7.1 sound, the gigabit Ethernet will no doubt come in handy.

On the inside, a Core 2 Duo E4500 churns at 2.2GHz, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM and a 320GB hard drive, meaning that on the power front this thing should last quite some time before needing to be upgraded. Most curiously in its default state the data drive uses FAT32, while the system drive of course is on NTFS.

The Intel GMA 3100 graphics are of course, rubbish from a gaming point of view but completely acceptable from a corporate one, and will assist in keeping the heat down and support issues as well.

Performance
While the Veriton put in an expectedly poor 303 in the gaming benchmark 3DMark06 thanks to the Intel graphics, PCMark05 (and where it counts for the business side) was more than adequate at 4074.

While Acer points to the Veriton 1000 for corporate rollouts, the quietness, form factor and features of the L460 are perfect for the small business market.

Acer offers a one-year onsite warranty (up to 80km from an Acer Authorised Onsite Service Provider), which can be upgraded to three years at the user's cost.