Polywell Poly 880K7-1400

WHAT'S HOT: The Poly 880K7-1400 we tested zipped to a score of 113 on our PC WorldBench 4 tests. The system includes a 1.4-GHz Athlon CPU, 256MB of 266-MHz DDR SDRAM, 80GB of combined storage space on two hard drives joined by an IDE RAID card, and a Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 graphics board. It also comes with a two-port IEEE 1394 card and Studio DV video-editing software. Polywell tossed in Lotus SmartSuite 9.5 and several other software applications--some geared toward home use. Following a $200 price drop, the Poly 880K7-1400 is $2399.

WHAT'S NOT: Polywell's phone support earned only a Fair rating in our recent anonymous tech support calls: Though somewhat helpful, representatives didn't fare very well with our specific troubleshooting scenarios.

WHAT ELSE: The 19-inch ViewSonic GS790 delivers deep, rich colors and crisp 12-point Arial text that begins to blur only at the maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200. To open the silver midsize tower, you loosen two thumbscrews and pop off the side panel, but the panel is a bit tricky to line up and reattach. The interior appears cramped--only one PCI slot is open, though five drive bays (four externally accessible and one internal) remain free. You can easily add expansion cards without tools by removing the slot's thumbscrew.

A fast 16X/10X/40X CD-RW drive handles CD recording, and a 16X DVD-ROM drive handles movies and music. A modem and a network interface give you two connectivity options. The Poly 880K7-1400's documentation consists of thorough component manuals and a spiral-bound system manual that's light on illustrations but heavy on general-use information. Logitech's Internet Keyboard, with 18 multimedia and Web hot-keys and an attachable wrist rest, provides smooth typing action.