Labs

The first eyebrow-raiser in this impressive-sounding machine is the quad-core processor - four processing cores in one small package. Then there's the 4GB of RAM, twice as much as you'd expect in even a generously equipped PC, and the awesomeX-FI Extreme Gamer sound card. Phew!

The quad-core processor is an immense piece of engineering, and it's great to have spare processing headroom for the many applications you might run. The sound card is great for music and surround sound gaming alike, since it not only has the 24-bit Crystalizer to enhance digital music, but also supports EAX 5 for games that can use it.

The 4GB

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of RAM, though, is perhaps excessive. Windows Vista 32-bit (the usual version in the shops, and the version supplied here) can only see 3.12GB of RAM at most, and could actually only see 3.07GB of the 4GB provided in this PC. This is due to the constraints of a 32-bit operating system, where every device and component must reserve a certain amount of RAM space in case it's used, starting from 4GB and working downwards. Evidently all the devices in the Mesh need 930MB combined, and so must deny that much RAM to Windows. Mesh would've been better off using two 1GB modules and two 512MB modules (3GB RAM in total) and spending the cost of the fourth gigabyte elsewhere.

The screen would be the obvious area. While the Mirai DML-522W100 is a great budget TFT, its low-cost nature was clear against the AOC supplied by PC Nextday or the LG shipped with the ChillBlast. There was little detail in the dark areas of images, and the screen lacked vibrancy and punch. The narrow vertical viewing angles also annoyed us.

In the end, though, these gripes did little to put us off what's a remarkably well specified PC for this amount of cash. You might want to think about a better screen, but the other bits are stonking.