IBM NetVista

The NetVista PC has a customizable configuration, so you choose the components you want, and pay accordingly. Being an office PC, the machine comes with onboard Ethernet and Windows 98 SE. There’s also a restore CD.

We ran BW 2001 on the PC to check its performance in running everyday productivity applications like MS Office, Netscape, and Norton AntiVirus. Here it got a score of 24.6, which is good for this configuration. In CCW 2001, which tests a machine for graphics and content creation applications such as Director 8.0, and Adobe Photoshop, it got an average score of 23.3. Quake III yielded very low frame rates, which was expected due to the onboard display. Not having an AGP slot means you can’t add a card to it later. A better option for this PC would have been an 815-based motherboard, which let’s you add an AGP card, thereby increasing the variety and scope of applications the PC can run. That said, the PC is a good option for business and office environments. Expansion is limited with only twoPCI slots. It’s a little expensive considering the configuration.

Sachin Makhija