Emachines E4076 review

If you want to buy a new PC but want the freedom to choose your own monitor, or you already have a display you're happy with, there's little sense in buying a whole new system.

Emachines' E4076 comes without a monitor and, at less than £300, is one of the cheapest PCs we've reviewed.

The E4076 has an Intel Pentium 4 processor and 512MB of RAM. While this is enough for running Windows, browsing the web and general office work, you'll want another 512MB for running several programs simultaneously or for tough jobs such as manipulating photos. As it is, the E4076 recorded low scores in our image-editing and multiple-applications tests, but did manage a respectable score in our video-editing benchmark.

This computer's integrated graphics chip uses 64MB of system memory, reducing the amount available to Windows. It limped through our graphical tests, and isn't up to playing the latest 3D games. You can plug a more powerful graphics card into the PCI Express x16 slot. Even if you don't want to play games, you may want to add a graphics card if you have a DVI-equipped monitor; the E4076 has only a D-sub video output. Aside from the PCI Express x16 slot, there's a free PCI Express x1 slot and two PCI slots inside this computer's mini-tower case. One PCI slot is occupied by a modem, but if you have a broadband internet connection this can be removed to make more room for useful peripherals such as a TV tuner or FireWire card.

If you want to store lots of photos, videos and music, the 120GB hard disk will begin to fill up quickly. There's space for adding one more internal disk, or you can add an external hard disk via one of the five USB2 ports. There's also a memory card reader for copying photos from the most common card types. No speakers are included, but you can connect a 5.1-channel surround-sound set to the standard analogue outputs. The old-fashioned ball mouse is comfortable to hold, though inaccurate, while the keyboard feels too spongy for anything other than occasional typing. The software bundle isn't overly generous, but does include useful titles such as Microsoft Works 8.5, and DVD-burning and -playback software from CyberLink.

If you have modest computing needs, the cheap and basic E4076 is a competent PC, but there's not much room inside the case for adding upgrades. Spending £100 more on a system such as PC Nextday's Zoostorm 1-3302, reviewed in our budget PCs Labs, Shopper February 2007, gets you better performance and a larger hard disk as well as a monitor.