Eclipse Ultimate 3200 Family PC review

Constructing a PC package that's perfect for mum, dad and all the kids isn't that simple. But despite Eclipse being a relative new kid on the block in the Buyer lab tests, its modestly titled 'ultimate' PC is a brilliantly thought-out piece of kit.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

At the heart of the Ultimate 3200 there's an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor partnered with a generous 1GB of RAM. This is twice as much memory as its competitors. With a gigabyte of RAM at its disposal, the Athlon 64 processor will cope with demanding software and memory-hungry applications such as video and image editing or 3D games for a good few years to come. An impressive score of 107 in our application benchmarks pays testament to the Eclipse's beefy selection of high-powered components.

WHAT'S IN STORE?

Storage space for all your music, video, photo and other files is provided by a 160GB hard disk. Should you find yourself reaching the limits of the hard disk's capacity, however, the NEC DVD writer offers a perfect way to back up all your old files, documents and photos. It's the fastest DVD writer on test, and also has the ability to write to the fantastically reliable DVD-RAM discs which, while pricey, are perfect for backing up important data.

If you need to save large files, for instance video projects, then you can also use the NEC to write to the more recent dual and double-layer discs. These hold a whopping 8.5GB each.

HANDS ON

Despite having an impressive core specification, we were rather disappointed by the shoddy keyboard and mouse combination on offer. The keyboard is plasticky and has a slightly peculiar layout with smaller-than-usual keys. For people who like that sort of thing, there are plenty of needless shortcut buttons. We'd replace the keyboard as soon as we had a spare £10 note and buy a plain Microsoft model instead. The optical mouse is equally naff, but at least it's usable.

SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

The keyboard may be annoying, but we can't bear to chide Eclipse too severely when it's the only manufacturer that has managed to supply a 19in TFT monitor. The Belinea 101902 looks neat and attractive in its silver and black livery, and provides a clean, bright image that's easy on the eye. Its 16ms response time, while not particularly speedy, is fast enough to cope with movies and the odd bout of gaming without any serious ghosting of the image becoming evident.

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS

The Eclipse has such a good all-round specification that there's nothing, apart from the keyboard and mouse combination, that will need replacing for some time. Playing 3D games is handled admirably by a card based on the nVidia GeForce 6600 chipset. This is by no means the fastest card available, but it still manages to rack up a respectable score of 25.4 frames per second in our challenging Doom 3 test. It will handle current and next-generation games for the near future, as long as you don't turn their resolution and detail settings up too high.

Even if games aren't your cup of tea, the Eclipse has a TV card nestling inside capable of receiving both analogue and digital Freeview programmes. Cyberlink's wonderfully straightforward PowerCinema software makes watching and recording TV an absolute cinch, and its interface is startlingly similar to that of Windows XP Media Center Edition. Preparing your recorded TV programs for archiving to DVD is easy thanks to a comprehensive array of Cyberlink video editing and authoring software.

CHERRY ON TOP

The final piece of the Eclipse's bundle is the Lexmark X1190 multifunction device which makes printing, scanning and copying a piece of cake. Both text and photo quality was merely acceptable, though. Text was a touch spidery and printing our two A4 test photos at 'best' quality took an excessively long 51 minutes. Scanning quality was acceptable and the one-touch copying function quick and handy, but the Lexmark was no match for the superior Canon MP150 bundled with the Evesham. As a family PC, the Lexmark will be fine though.