My pre-built PC: The final shortlist

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I’ve trawled the internet for bargains, customised more online PCs than I can count and consistently found the same few components to be most suited to my £250 price limit. I’m now left with the final decision: from a shortlist of three, which system offers the best return for my budget?

Option 1:

Asus’s little Eee Box PC is limited in its everyday functions due to the Atom inside, and on the optical front it doesn’t even stretch to a CD-ROM drive, but it does have its merits. For a start it’s tiny, quiet and consumes little power when on. It looks good, will fit snugly into any nook or cranny of a desk, and the cheapest I could find it in stock was £245.94 including VAT and delivery – within my budget.

• 1.6GHz Atom N270, 1GB DDR2
• 160GB hard disk
• Windows XP Home

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A complete PC package for £250? No problem!

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

I’m used to seeing all manner of PC systems turn up the PC Pro Labs. Some cost £3,000, others cost £600, and some choose to include a full range of peripherals – whereas others are simply towers of power that leave you to fork out for the extras afterwards. It really is a study in the sheer amount of variety that there is in the desktop PC market today.

Every machine that we review has two things in common, though: none of them cost £250, and not one of them has suffered the indignity of being thrown together by my unsubtle and leaden hands.

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