Sooner or later the old machine had to go. At three years old my Pentium 500 finally exhausted my patience. With a hard disc upgrade already installed and Windows XP on its way, I decided what I really wanted was a new toy.
So what do I desire from a new toy? I wanted as powerful a machine as I could find, on the basis that obsolescence was inevitable, and by going for the best I could defer the evil hour as long as possible. I wanted the biggest disk, most memory, fastest graphics card, best screen, and finest sound. With these, I could look my teenage kids in the eye.
I read the magazine reviews, lurked in retailers and played with websites. I discovered you could spend thousands if you really wanted the ultimate, so scaled back ambition a little and finally selected Evesham for three reasons:
First, it seemed to offer the maximum bang for each buck. Compared to its competition most components were of slightly higher specification.
Second, the various magazines I read gave Evesham high marks for its machines and during my period of research it won various monthly awards for being best in class, which I saw as positive.
Third, it was offered with a three year warranty, the first two years of which are on-site. Given the horror stories I have read on Ciao regarding PC repair hassles and never-ending help line calls, it seems like a significant advantage to have an engineer you can lock in till the problem is fixed.
I was aware that unless choosing a Dell or possibly IBM machine, what you are actually buying is a bunch of bits supplied by a variety of Korean sweatshops, and what sets one supplier apart from another is the selection of the bits, the care with which the screwdriver is wielded by the assembler, price and service.
I screwed up my courage and credit card and ordered the Axis 1400 package online on 10 October. Less than a week later I was showing off a review of my latest acquisition on the Evesham website when I noticed that there was a new top of the range machine available, and at a price not greatly dissimilar from the spec I had ordered. A panic phone call followed and with absolutely no fuss the salesman agreed to modify my order. I ended up with an 1800 processor for another £40.
The machine arrived without notice on 21 November in an assemblage of boxes of varying sizes and weights. Fortunately I was home at the time. The final price was £1,760 including VAT.
The specification was as follows:
1.53 mhz Athlon processor badged as 1800 512 mb memory 100 gb Western Digital hard drive 16x DVD-ROM 32x CD-RW player Gforce3 Graphics card 19” LG Flatron 915 monitor (an upgrade from the standard 17 inch model) Audigy sound card Cambridge soundworks speakers A 56kb modem Microsoft natural keyboard – since replaced with Office one
Windows XP Home. Some drivers for the sound card and monitor. A utility provided by Evesham to offer on-line advice and upgrades, called Big fix
Set up was very straight forward, clear diagrams were provided on a sheet of A3, and provided you followed the step-by-step guide everything went together well. I hit the switch, half a dozen LEDs came on and we were in business.
For the next week I was too busy fulminating about Windows XP to give much attention to the new PC. My scanner, TV card and LAN turned out to be incompatible, a ton of ageing software wouldn’t look at it, including Norton Antivirus 2000, and I had endless trouble configuring my modem.
Eventually, and after another credit card bashing session I managed to get back to a working system and could concentrate on my new toy.
Overall the difference in performance between the old Pentium 500 and the new Athlon is astounding. Opening a new application happens as near to instantly as you can wish; loading a large photo-album with maybe 50 pictures in it takes a second or two rather than a minute; even loading and playing games happens at light-speed. The negative of this is that Net access on a dial-up connection seems even more snail-like than ever. Come on, BT, offer Broadband out in the country!
As I suggested earlier, PCs like this one are largely the sum of their parts, so the rest of the review focuses on the performance of the bits that came with it:
100 gb Western Digital hard drive: I think the biggest yet seen in regular use. I have uploaded my entire CD collection at about 100 mb a disc and still haven’t half-filled it. With the amount of bloatware out there and the size of the newest games 100 gb seems like an appropriate size. Access times are pretty good as well.
You get a DVD player as well as a high speed CD rewriter about which not a lot can be said, except that a CD takes only a couple of minutes to transfer across.
The Gforce3 Graphics card is absolutely superb. The quality of the images are sensational not only when playing games where you can crank up the resolution to its highest level and still get no hint of flicker or hesitation, but also if you want to play a DVD or movie. Compared to the best of three years ago, this technology has moved forwards by miles.
I specified an upgrade to the standard monitor and selected a 19” LG Flatron 915 monitor which is not only pretty large, but offers a perfectly crisp and flat-screen image. Given the hours spent staring at this piece of glass, quality here matters. If you have the space, it’s an upgrade I would recommend, unless you are my flash brother-in-law (see later for details).
The system comes with an Audigy sound card and set of Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Again this is an area where in comparison with three years ago we are talking huge improvement. The sound card provides more sound effects and capability than I know how to use, and the Cambridge system comes with no less than six speakers; three in front of you, two behind, and a subwoofer on the floor. When playing a DVD you can experience full surround-sound at whatever volume you choose. If desired I suspect you could get your ears to bleed without too much difficulty! In sound quality terms my PC shades my Sony stereo system quite comprehensively.
I also specified a Microsoft natural keyboard, the one with the slanted keyboard. Maybe for a touch-typist it would have been a good idea, but I have now given up on it and replaced it with the Microsoft office version, which suits me far better.
So what don’t I like?
The fan used is very noisy, and its constant whirring is pretty irritating. It stays on when the system is in sleep mode as well, so unless you turn the whole system off you are accompanied all the time by an intrusive whirring.
When ordering online you are not offered a particularly large range of options. For example, if Evesham had offered me a deal on Office XP when I ordered I would probably have taken it. Again, they choose not to suggest printers or other peripherals at the time of order. I’m already flexing my credit card chaps, you should take advantage!
Last week my technophobe brother-in-law finally decided to get his own home PC. The spec he chose was very similar to mine, with the exception of an even more powerful processor and a very flash TFT flat-screen upgrade of which I am hugely jealous. Excluding the flash screen, the price he paid was slightly over £1,200 including VAT. Such is the power of Moores’ law. He also got delivery in less than a week.
So far nothing has dropped off, and were I buying again I would choose another Evesham.
More details
Reliability
Excellent
Memory / capacity
Excellent
Range of Extra Features
Satisfactory
Instruction manual
Very useful
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