Hareware Reviews

Buying a new PC isn’t the traumatic business it once was, if only because the typical price of a decent new desktop has dropped considerably in the last year. Where you used to have to look at around £1,000 for a well-specified computer, you can now look at around half that price, though you’ll usually have to add the dreaded VAT on top of that.

What you can now get for £499 + VAT is pretty impressive. A system with a fast processor, plenty of memory, capacious hard drive and possibly even a DVD rewriter is quite in order, and you can add to that a 17-inch monitor, reasonable speakers and maybe a wireless keyboard and mouse.

So, what jobs can you do with a PC with this kind of specification? Pretty much anything, from traditional business applications such as word processing or building a spreadsheet, through leisure or semi-professional interests like photo manipulation and digital video editing, to games playing. At this price point, the kind of PC you can buy puts very few limitations on your work.

There must be some shortcomings to the budget PC, though, or everyone would be buying them and sales of anything more expensive would plummet. There are bound to be compromises and you’re most likely to see them in the quality of the sound system, the lack of a second CD or DVD drive and most especially in the type of monitor.

At this price point, you’d be lucky to see an LCD screen. There’s still a price premium on the devices and although you can get systems at £499 + VAT which include them, you’d expect to find corners cut elsewhere. Look instead for a good quality, near-flat CRT monitor and try to get the best set of speakers you can, particularly if you’re interested in playing games.

We’ve tested six of the latest PCs at this price point.