Watford Aries MegaCube 2500 review

The last of our Mega PC hi-fi lookalikes is the best of the lot.

Features

Watford's MegaCube 2500 system (not to be confused with NetHighStreet's NET Mega Cube) has an impressive 120GB hard disk and 1GB of RAM, so you needn't worry about running out of memory or storage space. 1GB of RAM may be overkill for some, but it'll keep the system running smoothly if you have a lot of files open at once.

The built-in hi-fi mode won't impress hardened audio buffs, but it's not bad. The case even has a graphic equaliser with presets for different styles of music.

One limitation of the Mega PC system is that you can't use the hi-fi functions while Windows is running. Still, you can always use Windows Media Player instead.

Watford has included a Sony DVD burner that accepts all the major DVD formats, although it's not the fastest around. MSI approves only its own DVD drives for use in this case, but none of the vendors has gone for this option. We had no problems with any of the drives in our tests.

Watford has also bundled the MSI Mega Stick - a combined portable MP3 player, FM radio, voice recorder and Flash memory drive. We review it in full on page 100 of this issue. It's a pretty impressive little gadget.

The system also includes the MSI TV tuner card and a software package called WinCinema, which provides a basic TV recording facility. With all this, it'd be churlish to deny Watford full marks for features.

Ergonomics

The Watford's AOC flat-panel display suffers from uneven brightness. Although it's fairly sharp, it's not very well lit - which means it's not ideal for TV or DVD playback. Unlike most of the cube systems this month, this PC doesn't come with a wireless mouse and keyboard. The Chicony keyboard has a slightly spongy key action, and the optical mouse provided is uncomfortable to use.

Expansion

Both memory slots in this PC are full, although you're unlikely to need more RAM. Other upgrade options are identical to those of the CCL system.

Performance

The Watford's huge memory and 2.53GHz Pentium 4 processor help it to a score of 997 in our 2D benchmarks. The SiS integrated graphics chip isn't really designed for 3D graphics - and with a score of just 1,574 in 3DMark 2001, it shows.

Overall

This is a compact but feature-packed system that would sit nicely in any lounge. If you like the idea of a Mega PC system, this is a great value bundle packed with useful features.