PCs with Personality
From do-everything workhorses to entertainment specialists, the best new home PCs pack performance and pizzazz to spare.Dan Littman
The bland beige PC sitting on your home office desk is so 1989. These days, home computers are dressed in black, silver, and even bright blue, and their snazziness goes beyond appearance. Many of the latest PCs--with big LCD monitors, recordable DVD drives, and thundering speakers--can stand in as a one-stop entertainment system.
Today's turbo-charged home PCs make games and DVDs come alive, while less-powerful machines deliver good value and plenty of oomph for garden-variety productivity tasks.
We looked at ten systems ideal for the home user, divided into three categories: gaming, entertainment, and general-purpose productivity. PCs in each category have to meet baseline requirements--for example, you can't edit tape from your camcorder on a system that lacks the proper ports, and playing action games is no fun if the machine can't redraw the screen as fast as you can shoot. To test system performance, we ran our PC WorldBench 4 benchmark; we also blasted game sound tracks and music on their speakers, studied their screens for signs of stuttering while playing videos, and ferreted out useful ports.
We learned that you won't have to buy a separate system for each different use--all the PCs here have enough power to double or triple up on tasks, and they all have some capacity to receive upgrades.
Entertainment
As digital video, photography, and music proliferate, more people want a PC that acts as an editing station and a mixing board. You need a massive, high-throughput hard drive to access and store huge video and image files; plenty of memory to use in manipulating them; a wealth of ports to import data from cameras and music devices; and ports and drives to use in exporting your finished work to such devices and storage media as your TV screen, videotape, and writable DVD.
We looked at three media-savvy PCs: the Dell Dimension 8250, the Gateway 700X, and the HP Media Center 883n--the first system to run Microsoft's new XP Media Center. We also looked at a midrange, 17-inch, wide-screen IMac.
The three Windows systems have one major trait in common: They're quite expensive. (Apple's IMac, at $1999, costs about a grand less.) The three Windows machines each carry two optical drives, including a rewritable DVD drive. And each has a 120GB hard drive for storing your digital library. When that fills up, you can add a second hard drive to the Gateway or the Dell. For its part, HP's system is better equipped to talk to external devices than the others: Though all three systems have several USB 2.0 ports and at least one FireWire port, the HP adds card readers for all common flash media formats; and instead of offering one TV/VCR composite port, it has two.
But the HP system enables you to do more than merely create digital content: It also gives you new ways to luxuriate in it. You can hook up your television cable to the PC and use an included remote control to download television schedules from the Web, channel-surf, and record shows using a TV-tuner video card in TiVo fashion. Or wield the remote to launch My TV, My Music, My Pictures, and other HP programs from the Windows XP Media Center shell: Simple, hierarchical menus allow you to operate all these programs with one busy (and tired) thumb.
Though they can't process a TV signal or certain features of Windows XP Media Center, the Gateway and Dell computers pack some video-savvy software. Gateway totes a full copy of Pinnacle Systems' feature-laden Studio 7 movie creation software and a great 300-page primer on digital video; Dell brings the less-powerful but still-capable MGI VideoWave 4.
The Dell and the HP delivered comparable performance, earning PC WorldBench 4 scores of 121 and 120, respectively. Equipped with the same CPU as the Dell and twice the memory, the Gateway finished 8 points (over 6 percent) behind the Dell.
Sound and Vision
When you're correcting colors in photos or testing transitions between video clips, you need a display that you can look at for hours on end. Among the four PCs in our entertainment category, the 700X's monitor takes the prize: Gateway's FPD1810, an 18-inch LCD equipped with a digital video interface, rendered near-perfect text, even at small type sizes. It also played movies at full screen with no flicker or shimmer.
The Dimension 8250 we looked at came with Dell's P1130 21-inch CRT. The monitor produced rich, warm colors, along with subtle shading and detail on games and digital video. At default settings, however, the contrast was somewhat weak, which made text appear slightly out of focus.
The HP's 17-inch Pavilion F70 LCD screen has both analog and DVI inputs, but its 64MB NVidia GeForce4 MX 420-based graphics board offers only analog out. The F70's text looked somewhat grayish and broken up compared with that of the other monitors. The HP stumbles a bit on digital video, too: Even at half-screen size it flattens colors to preserve detail, and it produced somewhat blocky fast-motion video.
The Gateway and HP LCDs are certainly more space-efficient than Dell's CRT, which is 20 inches wide by 20 inches deep. On the other hand, Dell's monitor supplies so much real estate that you can work comfortably at 1600 by 1200 resolution, which the graphics card supports at 85 Hz.
Another important question is, how loud do you like your audio? Built in to the base of HP's LCD are tiny Polk Audio speakers that distort when turned up past conversational volume. In contrast, the Gateway's Boston Acoustic BA7800 4.1 speaker system sounds beautiful at medium volume, and it can really crank out the sound. Dell's 5.1 Altec Lansing ADA995 speaker set includes a huge subwoofer with its own volume control; in concert with the five surround-sound speakers, both treble and bass sounded clear and lively.
Since all three are similarly pricey, it's difficult to pick a winner. The HP's XP Media Center interface shows off the integration of PC and TV, but as a PC or video-editing station it's unremarkable. The Dell offers the greatest raw power but the weakest digital-media-specific capabilities. So overall, despite its somewhat lagging performance, we would put our money on Gateway's 700X, which excels with its beautiful display and helpful video-editing guide.
IMac Interlude
For people who love the Mac platform and the loads of software that Apple always includes, the IMac could be the right choice. Its bowl-shaped base supports a permanently attached 17-inch, 1440-by-900-pixel LCD on an articulated stalk that can tilt and rise independently. The base sports Apple's SuperDrive in the front (DVD-R/CD-RW); and in the back, FireWire and USB 1.1 ports. It has only one optical drive, and it supplies no bays for adding another. Our test unit had just 256MB of memory; a model with 512MB costs $150 extra.
The two small, spherical speakers rest unstably on rubber rings, and their audio managed to sound both tinny and muddy. The IMac's screen operates in landscape mode by default. It displays bright color and clean, crisp text. The NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 graphics controller, which has only 32MB of memory, makes full-screen movies look unimpressive and jumpy, but at the default size of 8.5 by 3.75 inches, movies played well.
Of course, Apple always devotes as much attention to software as it does to hardware, and this IMac comes with several Apple programs. IMovie, a timeline-based video-editing program, is so easy to use that a kid could figure it out, yet it's sophisticated enough to produce a competent digital movie. The IPhoto application archives digital photos and lets you share them on the Web. And in case you decide to use your computer for something practical, Apple throws in a copy of AppleWorks--a productivity package along the lines of Microsoft Works--and some kid-friendly games.
Hardworking Home PCs in Three Popular Flavors
| ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM | Street price (9/20/02) | PC WorldBench 4 / performance score | Comments | Base Configuration: CPU | Base Configuration: RAM (MB/type) | Base Configuration: Hard drive 1 | Base Configuration: Monitor (inches) | Base Configuration: Graphics | Base Configuration: Case type 2 | Extra features | Graphics/sound quality | Tech support (hours/days) | Setup and ease of use | Vendor's reliability/service |
| Apple IMac (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106298,00.asp) | $1999 | n/a3 | A beautiful 17-inch LCD and easy-to-use video- and image-editing software set this model apart from others; but unlike other systems here, it's not upgradable. (  ) | 800-MHz PowerPC G4 | 256MB/SDRAM | 80 | 17 (LCD) | 32MB NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 | All-in-one | DVD-R and 8X/4X/24X CD-RW SuperDrive; IMovie, IMusic and ITunes software, Quicken 2002 | Very good/Good | 12/7 | Very good | Good/Good |
| Dell Dimension 8250 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106301,00.asp) | $2988 | Windows XP / Home: 121 | A big CRT monitor and plenty of storage make this system ideal for both editing video and watching DVD movies. ( ) | 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 | 512/PC1066 RDRAM | 120 | 21 | 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro | Midsize tower | DVD+RW/+R drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive; Microsoft Office XP SBE, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.2, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, MGI VideoWare 4 | Outstanding/Outstanding | 24/7 | Very good | Good/Fair |
| Gateway 700X (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106304,00.asp) | $2999 | Windows XP / Home: 113 | With loads of RAM, a big hard drive, and separate recordable DVD and CD-RW drives, this PC is extravagantly equipped for both video editing and music ripping. ( ) | 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 | 1024/PC800 RDRAM | 120 | 18 (LCD) | 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro | Midsize tower | DVD-RAM/-R drive, 48X/24X/48X CD-RW drive; Microsoft Works Suite 2002, Pinnacle Studio 7, Age of Empires 2, Zoo Tycoon, Combat Flight Simulator, Midtown Madness | Very good/Very good | 24/7 | Very good | Fair/Fair |
| HP Media Center 883n (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106310,00.asp) | $2749 | Windows XP / Media Center: 120 | A built-in TV-tuner card highlights HP's latest competitor in the home PC arena. Toggling between music and video controls is easy, thanks to the remote. (  ) | 2.67-GHz Pentium 4 | 512/DDR266 SDRAM | 120 | 17 (LCD) | 64MB NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 | Minitower | DVD+RW/+R drive, 24X-48X CD-ROM drive; TV Tuner card, remote control, front-mounted CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, and Secure Digital slots | Good/Fair | 24/7 | Fair | Fair/Poor |
| GAMING SYSTEM | ||||||||||||||
| Cyberpower Titanium Gamer Force Pro (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106292,00.asp) | $1299 | Windows XP / Professional: 118 | A bright blue finish--marred in some spots by an uneven paint job--helps this machine stand out from the crowd. A plastic see-through panel lets you see inside. (  ) | 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ | 512/DDR SDRAM | 120 | 19 | 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro | Tower | 16X DVD-ROM drive, 40X/12X/40X CD-RW drive; Corel WordPerfect Office 2002, Norton AntiVirus 2002 | Outstanding/Outstanding | 10/5 | Good | 4/4 |
| Voodoo Computers Egad V28400 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106295,00.asp) | $3499 | Windows XP / Home: 124 | This pricey, stealth-black system comes with a big monitor and plenty of processing power. Has lots of open slots and bays for tinkerers. ( ) | 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 | 512/PC1066 RDRAM | 80 | 19 | 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro | Tower | 20X/10X/40X CD-RW/12X DVD-ROM drive; front-mounted CompactFlash, SmartMedia and Secure Digital slots | Outstanding/Very good | 12/55 | Good | 4/4 |
| GENERAL-PURPOSE SYSTEM | ||||||||||||||
| Compaq Presario 6000 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106313,00.asp) | $1266 | Windows XP / Home: 116 | Included video-editing and antivirus software make this PC a good deal for both basic and higher-end home tasks. ( ) | 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ | 256/DDR266 SDRAM | 40 | 17 | 64MB MSI G4 MX 420-T | Minitower | 16X DVD-ROM drive, 40X/12X/40X CD-RW drive; Microsoft Works 6.0, Norton Internet Security 2002, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0, Pinnacle Studio 7 | Fair/Fair | 24/7 | Good | Fair/Poor |
| Dell Dimension 4550 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106316,00.asp) | $1229 | Windows XP / Home: 110 | This is a fairly well-rounded PC, suitable for basic home-office tasks, but it lacks a DVD-ROM drive. ( ) | 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 | 256/DDR333 SDRAM | 40 | 17 | 64MB NVidia GeForce4 MX 420-T | Midsize tower | 40X/10X/40X CD-RW drive; Microsoft Works Suite 2002, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.2, MGI VideoWare 4 | Fair/Fair | 24/7 | Very good | Good/Fair |
| Emachines T2200 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106319,00.asp) | $968 | Windows XP / Home: 101 | Lots of RAM and a big hard drive make this very affordable system a great deal, but consider choosing another monitor. ( ) | 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ | 512/DDR266 SDRAM | 100 | 17 | Integrated S3 ProSavage8 6 | Minitower | 16X DVD-ROM drive, 40X/12X/40X CD-RW drive; Microsoft Works 7.0, Encarta 2002 | Poor/Poor | 16/7 | Very good | Good/Fair |
| Gateway 300S (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,106322,00.asp) | $959 | Windows XP / Home: 94 | With its smallish hard drive, low-end sound, and integrated graphics, this PC may suit a family looking for a starter system. ( ) | 1.8-GHz Pentium 4 | 256/DDR266 SDRAM | 20 | 17 | Integrated Intel 845GL 6 | Midsize tower | 16X DVD-ROM drive, 40X/12X/48X CD-RW drive; Microsoft Works Suite 2002, Quicken 2002, Norton AntiVirus 2002, The Sims | Fair/Fair | 24/7 | Good | Fair/Fair |
Gaming
Serious gamers seek total immersion in the action. Most gaming PCs include a graphics subsystem to blast frames on the screen and a sound system to shake the walls. We tested two gaming machines from opposite ends of the price spectrum: Voodoo's $3499 Egad V28400 and Cyberpower's $1299 Titanium Gamer Force Pro.
Our Cyberpower Titanium's blue case has a clear plastic window on one side that allows you to view its interior, which is lit up by a neon tube. Voodoo's Egad V28400 doesn't bother with flashy decoration, though its burnished black all-steel case looks sleek and confident.
Both test systems came with 512MB of memory and an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics board loaded with 128MB of video memory. The Cyberpower Titanium ran on a 1.8-GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+ processor, while the Voodoo relied on a 2.8-GHz Intel Pentium 4 to earn the highest PC WorldBench 4 score (124) of any system in this review.
We ran our game tests at a resolution of 1280 by 1024 with 32-bit color depth; and at those levels, the Voodoo's muscle really paid off. It displayed Return to Castle Wolfenstein at 93 frames per second--compared with the 63 fps managed by the Cyberpower Titanium. (Frame rates above 60 fps are considered flicker-free; both systems performed admirably at this demanding setting.) We marveled at the subtle shading and uncanny depth maintained on both systems, even during firefight scenes.
The Cyberpower's Creative Labs Inspire 5.1 surround-sound speakers rocked the house. Meanwhile, a dead sound port on our test Voodoo PC sidelined two of the four Klipsch ProMedia speakers in its sound system. But even with just two speakers and a subwoofer functioning, it sounded rich and powerful.
Both systems are also well equipped for everyday computing. The Cyberpower's 19-inch ViewSonic E90F monitor displays crisp text even at very small font sizes. The Voodoo's 19-inch NEC MultiSync FE991SB rendered readable--albeit slightly blotchy--text. The Cyberpower's monitor, in contrast, displayed all of its blotchiness on the outside: The monitor and some other components were messily spray-painted to match the navy blue case, giving the system a shoddy look. Cyberpower says that it couldn't have kept to a $1299 price while putting all the components in special dyed, injection-molded cases with custom-made faceplates.
So is the Voodoo Egad V28400 worth $2200 more than the Cyberpower Titanium Gamer Force Pro? The Voodoo's processing muscle will keep it current longer with the next wave of games. But the Cyberpower has plenty of power too, and it's definitely a better deal--if you don't mind the sloppy paint job.
General-Purpose
Maybe you need a computer just for sending e-mail and doing research on the Internet, or for those nights when you bring your spreadsheets home. If so, you can skip the custom-painted, neon-illuminated box and the big LCD screen and save a lot of money without sacrificing computing capability. We looked at efficient productivity PCs from Compaq, Dell, Emachines, and Gateway that range in price from $959 to $1266 with monitor.
Your first concern about a basic system is probably how fast it is. Rest assured, they're fast enough to run a spreadsheet, or even a photo editor. The $1266 Compaq Presario 6000 (with a 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ processor and 256MB of memory) and the $1229 Dell Dimension 4550 (with a 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 and 256MB of memory) both earned PC WorldBench 4 scores only several points behind the fastest systems tested in this review. The $968 Emachines T2200 has the same processor as the Presario 6000 and carries twice the memory, but came in about 15 percent slower; meanwhile, the $959 Gateway 300S ran approximately 23 percent slower.
But that 23 percent spread in benchmark scores looks bigger on paper than it feels when you're using productivity applications. The few instances when you might notice the low-cost systems' performance lag are while playing games or watching DVDs. The Emachines T2200 and the Gateway 300S, which use integrated graphics chips, lack dedicated graphics memory; unfortunately, however, even the Dell's and Compaq's stand-alone graphics boards deliver choppy motion and jaggy textures.
What's Inside?
We could evaluate the Dell's graphics capability only on games--not DVD movies--because it has no DVD player, just a CD-RW drive. (Springing for a DVD-ROM drive adds $20 to the price.) The Compaq, Emachines, and Gateway units all have separate DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives. For downloading video from your digital camcorder, Emachines gives you three FireWire ports, and Compaq provides one. Emachines also supplies a 100GB hard drive, which is big enough to hold some digitized video. The Compaq and Dell PCs have 40GB hard drives, and the Gateway hard drive is only 20GB; you may want to supplement their storage capacity with another hard drive. Fortunately, all four systems leave an internal drive bay open--though getting at the Compaq's bay is a chore--and several USB 2.0 ports that you could use to connect an external drive.
Because the monitor is a PC's most expensive component, that's where makers of low-cost systems usually try to economize. All four of our test machines came with 17-inch, house-brand CRT monitors. Compaq's FS 7550 screen looked grayish and somewhat out-of-focus; Emachines' 17S display delivered a decidedly muddy picture at its default settings, and appeared overexposed with the brightness turned up; Gateway's EV700 rendered particularly weak and blurry text. Dell's M782 came through with the best image quality of the lot, especially for e-mail, spreadsheets, and other eyeball-intensive work: Text looked fairly sharp, but colors were somewhat muted.
All four of these systems offer a fair deal for the price, but the Compaq Presario 6000 really delivers on performance. We just wish it had a better monitor. If you decide to buy the 6000, you'll probably want to pair it with another display.
So which activity is it going to be--gaming, filmmaking, Web surfing, or all three? By picking an appropriately configured PC, you can make it easier to pursue whichever pastime you choose. Our advice: Give strong consideration to types of tasks you'll be performing, and shop accordingly. Often, a gaming system can serve as a competent video-editing system as well, and many video-editing machines--and even basic, mainstream PCs--can also deliver great images and sound for your favorite games. By choosing the right PC carefully, you can ensure that your system won't be a one-trick pony. After all, even the most devoted video editor enjoys relaxing with a game once in a while.
Dan Littman is a contributing editor and Rebecca Freed is a senior editor for PC World.
Mobile Home PC: Should Your Next Home PC Be a Notebook?
My current home computer is a notebook, and I'll never go back to using a desktop. Partly I'm attracted by the aesthetics of mini-PCs, but mostly I love the freedom to work wherever I please.
Five days a week, I use a desktop PC in my PC World office. When I'm at home, the last thing I want to do is sit isolated in my home office, just so I can Web-surf and return e-mail. I'd much rather slouch in my big living room chair, where I can take part in conversations. And because I've installed a home network with a Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless access point, I can do just that.
Using a notebook at home has other charms. It's no longer an inconvenience to clear out of my office so that it can serve its other purpose as a guest room. And when I travel, my notebook comes with me, along with all the applications and files I've been using at home. Hauling my 7-pound notebook through airports is no picnic, but I don't mind doing it occasionally. (If I traveled often, I'd probably buy one of the new, tiny ultraportables.)
Using a notebook at home has its compromises. My desktop-replacement-size notebook has all the computing power I need for now, and its screen is big enough for comfortable use over long stretches. But some components are getting outdated, and upgrading them is an expensive proposition.
Sure, I might be able to ship my system back to its maker, wait a couple of weeks, and pay through the nose for those upgrades, but instead I'll live with the 20GB hard drive and use an external CD-RW drive for backups. When it's time to replace my notebook, I'm willing to pay the $200 to $300 difference between a power notebook and a power desktop in return for the freedom to set up wherever I like. You have to make a few sacrifices in any relationship, and I'm committed to this one.
--Rebecca Freed
Personality Profiles: Pick the Right PC
Doubtless, you already know what you want to be able to do with you next home PC. But what configuration will do the best job for you--both today and a year or two down the road?
Here's a checklist of recommended specifications for four common types of home PC: gaming, video and image editing, music and movies, and basic productivity. Treat these specs as reference guidelines when you shop for your next PC. And don't forget to take future uses into account--you might live for gaming today, but in a couple of years, additions to the family may turn you into a budding videographer.
Depending on how generous your budget is, you may have to make some compromises between your lust for the latest and greatest technology and the cold reality of how much money you can afford to spend.
Finding Corners to Cut
Where should you look for places to cut? The monitor makes a good starting point: Picking a smaller screen can save you substantial money, as can sticking with a CRT rather than upgrading to an oh-so-desirable LCD flat-panel. Downgrading your processor to a model that's a step or two lower than the fastest CPU available is another relatively painless way to save a couple of hundred dollars.
Also, do you really need 5.1 surround-sound speakers with a subwoofer the size of a big dog? And how large a hard drive do you require? You won't want to undertake even general-purpose computing (surfing the Web and using office productivity applications) with less than 20GB, but anything over 80GB is probably overkill.
Where you shouldn't compromise is on service (see our story, " You Call This Service?"). If your PC has a one-year warranty and the vendor offers a three-year upgrade, paying the difference is almost always worthwhile. (That piece of advice doesn't necessarily hold for the separate warranty upgrades offered by retail stores, however.)
Configuration Checklist
