Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo P3.4 review

Typically, a budget PC is constructed from a series of compromisest to hit a low price point.

That's not the case with the Fujitsu-Siemens' Scaleo P 3.4 though - this PC has a trick up its sleeve. In technical terms, it's 'Grade 2' stock. PC-Interworks collects dead-on-arrival PCs from Fujitsu-Siemens and checks them out. If it's something trivial that can be fixed, it's sorted out by an engineer, repacked and sold on at a rock-bottom price, although a monitor isn't included. As long as you're not too snobbish about someone else already having touched your PC, the Scaleo is a bargain.

Speed machine

Rather than a budget processor like an AMD Sempron or Intel Celeron, this PC boasts a full-blown Pentium 4 running at a nippy 3.4GHz. There's also 1GB of RAM to keep the installed copy of Windows XP Home running smoothly. No wonder then that this system proved a whisker faster than our speedy benchmark reference PC. Compare this to the £443 Lenovo ThinkCenter we reviewed last month, which was barely half as fast.

As well as plenty of speed, there's plenty of storage. The 250GB hard disk is incredibly generous at this price and unless you're really into your digital music, photography or video, most people will never come close to filling that space. Gaming is the obvious space-filler missing from that list, but unfortunately, you'll be hard-pressed to find many 3D games of any age that the supplied Leadtek GeForce 6200 TurboCache graphics card can handle.

Should you fancy a spot of gaming though, the 6200 does at least sit in a PCI-Express slot, so it can be replaced with any of the current crop of 3D graphics cards. PCI Express in a £399 PC is a genuine surprise and guarantees the possible use of the most up-to-date components when upgrading. The Scaleo's motherboard is made by Asus, a manufacturer that has a great reputation for speed and reliability. It only has one free PCI slot, but with on-board eight-channel audio, a modem, FireWire and Ethernet, you'll struggle to find a use for it.

Silent running

One use might be a PCI TV tuner, as the Scaleo runs very quietly, making it a candidate for living room use. The graphics card has no fan and is instead cooled by a large heatsink, and there's some ingenious cooling elsewhere too. A funnel on the side of the case ensures cold air is sucked onto the processor, while a smaller fan draws air over the hard disk to keep it cool. If we have one quibble, it's that the cabling inside our review PC was rather haphazard, potentially blocking airflow through the case and hindering access to other components for upgrade purposes.

The case is of curious construction, though it's by no means bad. The removable shell wraps around the three sides, providing much of the structural strength, and it's certainly a change from the normal strong steel cage with flimsy side panels. With this sturdy shell removed, there's a single 5.25in drive bay free and two internal 3.5in bays.

While the specification and general build quality of the Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo is hugely impressive for the asking price, its Grade 2 status does have one downside. The warranty supplied is only six months, which won't suit everyone. Hardware faults on any new PC tend to happen within a matter of weeks though, and few warranties cover software problems. So, the six-month guarantee should be enough to ensure you have a working computer that will last a while and if not, trained Fujitsu-Siemens engineers will turn up at your door to make any repairs while it's still in place.