Packard Bell iExtreme 6080

While Packard Bell has always tried to be innovative with design, the performance and price of its PCs have always raised a few sceptical eyebrows.

Now, with a brand-new look, its latest line of desktop PCs aims to do much more towards impressing those style-conscious buyers,without alienating those who need power.

When we lifted our specimen PC out of the box, we thought we'd been sent an Apple thanks to its futuristic white casing and matching monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. The plastic feel may not suit everyone but the iExtreme 6080 certainly stands out from the crowd.

DVD, CD-RW and floppy drives are concealed behind three flimsy panels on the front of the PC, which flip open when each drive is activated.

The case houses the usual range of ports and connectors including two convenient USB 2 ports on the front.

Getting inside the case is simple - just press the quick release button and the side panel slides off. It's very cosy inside. We found only two free PCI slots and one free 3.5in drive bay.

At the heart of the system is a Pentium 4 2.6GHz processor and 512Mb of memory, which together managed a good score in our systems tests. However, the 40Gb hard disk isn't generous. For the light user the size is acceptable but as most of us want to use our PCs for photos, downloading from the web or manipulating video and audio, that 40Gb will be gobbled up in no time.

It's not helped by the fact that a fair whack of the hard disk is taken up by the impressive software bundle. This includes Norton Internet Security 2003 and Microsoft Works 7, which contains a word processor and spreadsheet.

For good measure, Packard Bell also throws in DVD and photo, music and video-editing software.

Graphics are driven by a 128Mb ATI Radeon 9200 card, which is near the budget end of the market. It will run the latest 3D games but no where near at their full potential. For the occasional gamer, however, this a good compromise between value and performance. One thing that the graphics card will allow is to hook up your television to the PC through the video-out port. You can then watch movies or view digital photos on a more comfortably-sized screen.

That said, we were also pleased with the 15in TFT monitor, which runs at a resolution of 1024 x 768. Its styling matches that of the case and it will look great on any desk.

The iExtreme 6080 doesn't come with 5.1 sound but does include two round and cute stereo speakers that sound and look good.

If you want a balance between style and performance, then the iExtreme 6080 is not a bad bet.

Contact: Packard Bell 01628 512400
www.packardbell.co.uk