Pelham Sloane PS1500

Measuring only 7cm thick, the PS1500 is aimed at space-conscious users, and will be available with a screen that can be raised and tilted back 90 degrees for access to the ports. The screen has a slight pinkish tinge, but the picture is sharp. Viewing angles in the horizontal plane were adequate, but the illumination drops after about 40 degrees in the vertical plane.

Since the PS1500 is a 'sealed unit', upgrades must be carried out by the company. Inside our pre-production model, there's a mini-Flex ATX motherboard based on Intel's 845GV chipset. This has a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor and a 256MB stick of DDR memory. An overall Sysmark 2002 score of 183 bodes well for office applications, and a 3Dmark score of 1,503 is pretty poor, but good enough for a PC that's not for hardcore gaming.

The price includes a DVD drive, a 40GB hard drive, two USB2 ports and one Firewire port. In later versions, two further USB ports will be added to the right. There's no infra-red as standard or a dial-up modem, but you do get a 10/100 Ethernet port, plus serial, parallel, TV-out ports, line-in and -out mini jacks and a PS/2 wheel mouse and keyboard.

Pelham Sloane will also be offering 1.8GHz Celeron and Via C3 933 processor versions and, at varying costs, will tailor options to suit most users' needs.

The price is reasonable and its compact size fits its intended niche well. In the end though, it comes down to a choice between this and a notebook.

Contact: Pelham Sloane 020 7349 2090
www.pelhamsloane.com

Specifications:

• Windows XP Pro
• Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz
• 256MB of memory
• 40GB hard disk
• Eight-speed DVD drive
• Intel Extreme Graphics chip
• 15in TFT LCD monitor
• AC97 5.1 audio chip
• Integrated stereo speakers
• 8.6kg