Time TFT Desktop PC

Time's TFT Desktop PC is the latest in an ever increasing range of integrated PCs to arrive in the Personal Computer World offices, and it is a fairly impressive piece of kit.

The TFT Desktop is not made by Time itself, but by a Taiwanese company, and as other companies such as AJP, have the rights to re-sell these PCs in the UK as well, you'll be seeing very similar systems appearing from them.

It certainly looks more attractive than many of the similar machines that we have seen, and it has an extremely small footprint even judged against other machines in its class. The centrepiece is a 15in LCD, with a native resolution of 1024 x 768. LCD displays have increased in quality so much in the past year or so that it's rare for us to see a bad example, and there are no surprises here.

The backlight is bright and even, so you'll have no trouble looking at the screen for extended periods. The shell is constructed from black and silver plastic with a small blue panel over the speakers in the front of the unit, and this gives it a very distinct look.

The spec is based on an Intel Pentium III processor speeding along at a reasonable 866Mhz, 128Mb of memory, and a motherboard based on a 630 chipset from SIS. The chipset is similar to Intel's 810 in that it features integrated graphics and is aimed at the budget end of the market. One advantage the SIS 630 chipset has over the 810 is that you can choose the amount of system memory that you allocate to the graphics subsystem, with 8Mb, 16Mb and 32Mb options.

The Time also has DVD and floppy drives that are mounted vertically on the right-hand side of the display. Both of these are slim-line laptop drives. The SIS 630 chipset supports motion compensation, so when you play back DVD movies using the supplied software, part of the MPEG2 decoding load is taken from the processor.

On the left-hand side there are two Type II or one Type III PC Card slots, offering a wealth of expansion options. Contrast controls and audio in and out ports are located at the bottom of the display.

The rear is crammed with ports. There are two PS/2 for keyboard and mouse, two USB FireWire, parallel, serial and a VGA port for an external monitor. Connectivity is covered by a 56K modem and a 10/100 Ethernet connection at the rear. There is even an infra-red port at the front of the system. In terms of ports, there's not much else we could have asked for.

Two issues always raise themselves when reviewing integrated PCs: upgradability and serviceability, and here, Acer's Veriton FP2 (reviewed last month) has the edge. Time's system is easy enough to open, but you're limited to upgrading the memory and the processor.

You can't replace or upgrade the LCD display in the same quick and easy way that you can with the Acer so if the panel blows, you'll have a problem on your hands. It does, however, have a very large hard drive for a system in this class, a whopping 40Gb from Seagate mounted at the base of the unit.

It may seem churlish to complain about the keyboard and mouse, but we do think that it would have been better if the company had provided a more integrated solution, with multimedia keys and styling to match the main unit. The system performed fairly well in our 2D benchmark, and we even managed to run both 3DMark and Quake III at 1024 x 768 in 16bit colour, although at unplayable frame rates.

It goes without saying that if you are thinking of buying this system to play games on - don't. It simply isn't intended for this, so it's not surprising that it can't deliver here.

Software is well catered for. In addition to Windows Millennium, you get Time's standard and executive software packs. These include programs such as Lotus SmartSuite Millennium, Works 2000, Norton AntiVirus and Encarta 2000.

There's a fairly hefty price tag attached to the TFT Desktop PC, though, and in our book this, combined with its greater expansion potential, leaves Acer with the award for best integrated PC.

Contact: Time
0800 316 3407
www.timegroup.co.uk.