Aries Perfecta 2800 Pro

The same can be said for the A4 Tech wireless keyboard and mouse. They not only look cheap compared with Logitech and Microsoft's offerings, but the keyboard feels clunky in use, and the shape of the keys veers from a rhombus at the edges to a kind of triangle in the middle. It might be an attempt at improving ergonomics, but Microsoft's keyboards feel much more comfortable in use.

Aries has got PC building down to a tee, but the Perfecta 2800 Pro needs better features to be competitive. It's also debatable who this PC is for. Home users will want better speakers, while businesses won't care for fast 3D graphics. They'll also want more than a one-year, on-site warranty, and would be better off with a basic, cheaper and professional PC like the NEC PowerMate ML5 (see issue 102, p124).

Home users, meanwhile, should save their pennies for the £1,299 Dell Dimension 8300 (see issue 105, p56). It may cost £164 more, but it offers a superior 19in TFT, a decent speaker set, a DVD burner over the Aries' CD-RW, a 3GHz CPU and a faster graphics card.

Author: Ben Hardwidge