Polywell Poly 880NF2/MX

What the Poly 880NF2-MX lacks in style and expandability, it makes up for in performance. Though the system's WorldBench 5 score of 71 put it well behind value contenders on our regular Top 15 Desktop PCs chart, the mark was one of the best earned by a system in our recent low-cost PCs roundup.

The machine's graphics performance was quite good, too, for a PC in this class. In our Unreal Tournament 2003 test, for instance, the integrated NVidia graphics churned out 44 frames per second at 32-bit color and 1024 by 768 resolution--far better than what we see from most budget PCs with integrated graphics. This level of performance makes playing an action game on the Poly at least possible, although the experience would be less than optimal. (The PC World Test Center says a minimum of 30 fps is required for a game to be playable, but our lab analysts recommend at least 60 fps for a smooth, enjoyable experience.) Occasional gamers might be satisfied, but people who play lots of action games should install a dedicated graphics card in the system's open AGP slot.

The PC tower sports a basic black metal design with two front-mounted USB ports, but no front audio jacks. Two Phillips screws hold each side panel, and you must remove both of them to access the screws that hold the drives in place. Also, two screws anchor the front bezel. The interior is a bit cramped, and access to the three RAM slots requires maneuvering.

Polywell bundled a very basic 17-inch ViewSonic Q71 CRT monitor with a curved face that caught glare easily. Text looked fairly crisp, though a grayish cast to what should have been white pages made the text a little hard to read. Colors on photos appeared washed out, as the monitor could not muster sufficient saturation. If you have a little extra money, do your eyes a favor and buy a better model, such as the $150 ViewSonic E70f CRT.

On the other hand, the included Logitech Internet Pro keyboard was quite nice, providing smooth typing and an assortment of shortcut buttons for launching applications. The PC also comes with a Logitech optical mouse.

Upshot: Although the Poly 880NF2-MX performed well, it lacks the clean interior design and the array of ports that we like to see in a budget desktop.

Seán Captain