Premio Shadowhawk 400C

Premio Shadowhawk 400C

SUMMARY

PRO: Speedy performance, good expandability CON: Price could be a bit more competitive, case somewhat tricky to close, lean support hours

If your home decor tends to Gen-X style--black walls, black refrigerator, black shower curtains--Premio's sleek-looking Shadowhawk 400C will fit right in. Destined for the ebony-veneer desks of trendy home and small-office users, this $1599 machine offers excellent performance. It turned in a PC WorldBench 98 score of 196, making it the second-fastest Celeron-400 we've tested.

If you could care less about color coordination, the Shadowhawk 400C fades to only a moderately good value. Its price is the highest of the four Celeron-400 systems on the budget chart, and its feature set doesn't exceed the staples for a small business: a 14X­40X CD-ROM drive, a 17-inch monitor, and the standard business software suite--Microsoft Office Small Business Edition.

Inside, the system offers copious expandability, with two internal and three externally accessible free bays, as well as four open slots. Closing the case requires a bit more effort than it should--you must carefully align the side panel with several points on the chassis before it will slide back on.

Premio delivers a mixed bag of service and support. In our anonymous support calls, the company's reps offered good advice in a timely manner--sometimes in less than a minute. And Premio backs its systems with a three-year parts, three-year labor warranty--competitive with what other vendors offer. We would like to see longer support hours, though. Premio's ten hours per day, Monday through Friday, won't suffice for always-on-call small-business workers.