Watford Aries Perfecta 9010 review

While we'd all love to spend two grand on a computer and get the best of everything, the reality is slightly different. For those who place value for money as their premier buying criteria, £800 is a much more realistic sum.

It may not be the most attractive of computers, but Watford's Aries Perfecta 9010 hits this mark and packs a decent spread of components into an affordable bundle. Based on an Intel Pentium 4 3GHz processor with two 256MB memory modules, the Perfecta doesn't lack power. In core application tests it outperformed the Mesh Media+ Cubex64, reviewed opposite, which may be better-looking but costs over twice as much.

However, the 80GB hard disk is the minimum you should expect in any desktop PC. If you plan to make heavy use of video-editing tools or other storage-intensive applications, you might wish to add a second hard disk. Gaming potential is also limited. While the 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 XT graphics card is competent for older games, new titles such as Doom 3 have to be run at lower resolutions and detail levels to remain playable.

Although hard disk storage is limited, Watford does include two optical drives with the Perfecta. Both from Sony, the DW-D22A is a double-layer DVD writer capable of recording 8.5GB to a single disc, so you can back up the entire hard disk to 10 double-layer DVDs with room to spare. The second optical drive is a 16X DVD-ROM.

The screen is often the single most expensive component of a PC, so budget systems often come with inexpensive or poor-quality models to keep the price down. Watford includes the 17" Philips 170S5 panel. This has only an analogue input but its auto-adjust function works reasonably well to produce a decent image. Brightness is a little patchy and viewing angles are relatively narrow, but its 16ms response time means you don't see any ghosting on moving images. It also displays a smooth and linear transition from dark to light.

The Perfecta comes with stereo speakers and a subwoofer from Altec Lansing. These are adequate for casual use, but to get the most from movies and games you may want to upgrade to a surround-sound set. You can connect to the internet using either the PCI modem or integrated network port.

The Perfecta is a decent system but it seems a little expensive for what you get.