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This unit has a dual core processor and I was happy with the rapid way it handled all I asked it to do. It is an Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz processor on an Intel 945G+ICH7 board. I was quite surprised that it has only 512MB of Ram of which 504MB is available. However this is DDR II 667MHz Ram. Technically the unit can support up to 4GB and only one of the four memory slots is taken with the single 512MB Ram module.

This is one of the first PC’s I have seen with Serial ATA II hard disc. This came with what is stated as 100GB the actual figure was 97.36GB. Again you can currently connect up to 250GB. It was partitioned as C and D.

This tower unit is 54x18x43cm and is black. It comes with a keyboard and a mouse and Windows XP and some Acer software. No monitor or panel is supplied in the price nor any speakers.

My first surprise was that taking it out of the box attaching cables, panel and speakers took less than five minutes. Five minutes later I had booted and connected to the Internet via my modem router and was updating the supplied 'three month' version of Norton Internet Security, three reboots later Norton was happy as was Windows updating the latest updates to the supplied SP2 version. So all in all 10 minutes from box to useful work I think that’s good.

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In June I was supplied with an Acer AL2021 20inch panel for a long term test – something I would like to do more of – and this was used for most of the review of the Veriton 7800 but I also used a smaller panel and a 17inch monitor. The speakers I used were nothing special but gave perfectly adequate sound reproduction.

A few words about the keyboard and mouse supplied both were USB and I find that rather surprising as the unit has two perfectly usable PS/2 ports that are likely otherwise to go unused. There are only two USB ports on the back – I used these for the keyboard and mouse – with a further six mounted on top – facing forward - of the system box and these I connected a normal range of things like a printer, scanner, camera and various memory sticks to. Being on top means that all the items you place in front of the PC do not have to be moved to access the front USB ports.

This unit comes with a floppy drive (a lot of PC’s don’t today) and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, there are three other external bays so lots of expansion capabilities. There are three internal 3.5inch bays free. This unit has gigabit Ethernet that is also capable of supporting slower speeds. It also has a built in 56k modem for those times when a network may not be available.

So the I/O is two PS/2 ports, 9-pin serial, 25 pin parallel, 8 USB2 ports, Ethernet Port VGA/Video port and six audio ports. Inside there are two PCI slots and a PCI express slot all free. I was happy with the integrated graphics. There is a 300W power supply that ran everything with no problems and on at least one occasion I managed to fill all 8 USB ports.

Not much space to mention the various software packages supplied but the Acer eLock software allows you to disable writing to external drives, optical discs or even the floppy, great for security. Personal Profile Migration allows you to save personal data to external sources such as a pen drive, conversly this is rather the reverse of eLock. Finally Acer have there own system recovery unit. When you first start you are nagged to back up to provide that all important set of discs should the worst happen.

I liked the Veriton 7800 and would certainly have liked it on long term loan like the Acer AL2021 – you should read about my first six months of use in December – the Veriton boots in 55 seconds and shuts down in 15 seconds, these figures were true on day one and now on the last test day as well.

In June I was told the price would be £750. Doing my Internet search found it at £673 from the link below.

http://www.pyramid.com/Product.aspx?StockCode=141555

http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4.do?dau22.oid=10250&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=17&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=3078806435