Dan Littman

Emachines T2200

The T2200 comes with plenty of hardware for its $968 price tag, including 512MB of memory and two optical drives--a CD-RW drive and a DVD-ROM drive. In addition, if you want to try editing digital video before sinking your life savings into a high-end PC, the T2200 carries three FireWire ports and a 100GB hard drive where you can store clips from your camcorder.
Marring an otherwise well-rounded set of components--including a 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ processor--is the T2200's integrated S3 ProSavage8 graphics system, which uses main memory instead of its own dedicated graphics memory. (An AGP slot is available, but it's up to you to fill it: Emachines does not offer a graphics card upgrade.) The computer earned a PC WorldBench 4 score of 101 points--that's almost 15 percent slower than Compaq's fairly similar Presario 6000, which has half as much main RAM, but a dedicated graphics board with 64MB of graphics RAM. Images on the 17-inch Emachines 17s CRT monitor looked somewhat muddy at the default settings and appeared overexposed when we cranked up the brightness; we couldn't find a happy medium. We found text very hard to read, and DVDs and games had flat color and looked somewhat jerky--no doubt because in our gaming tests the monitor managed an average frame rate of only of 6 frames per second at 1024 by 768 resolution. Emachines' support desk doesn't stay open 24 hours a day--just 16--and you pay the toll charges.
The T2200 comes loaded with Microsoft Works 2000, Money 2000 Standard, and Encarta 2002. Despite its small size, the T2200's case gives you plenty of room to work inside: In addition to the empty AGP slot, it has three empty PCI slots. And outside the box, you'll find the usual serial, parallel, and (two) PS/2 legacy ports, plus six USB ports.
You won't find much to brag about in the T2200, but if your needs and your budget are modest, it will help you get your work done.

Buying Information

Emachines T2200 PC WorldBench 4 score of 101, 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+, Windows XP Home, 512MB of DDR266 SDRAM, 100GB hard drive, 40X/12X/40X CD-RW drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, integrated S3 ProSavage8 graphics using main memory, 17-inch Emachines 17s monitor, integrated sound, Emachines speakers, network adapter, V.92 modem, minitower case; Microsoft Works 7.0. One-year warranty on parts and labor, 16-hour daily toll-call tech support. $ 968 PC WorldBench 4 score of 101, 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+, Windows XP Home, 512MB of DDR266 SDRAM, 100GB hard drive, 40X/12X/40X CD-RW drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, integrated S3 ProSavage8 graphics using main memory, 17-inch Emachines 17s monitor, integrated sound, Emachines speakers, network adapter, V.92 modem, minitower case; Microsoft Works 7.0. One-year warranty on parts and labor, 16-hour daily toll-call tech support. http://www.emachines.com 800/362-2446