Vista is now upon us and Evesham’s Solar Eclipse aims to appeal to those who want to experience all the new operating system has to offer but without spending a small fortune.

The system itself is a little uninspiring to look at. The grey, square-edged case certainly doesn’t go hand in hand with all the razzmatazz surrounding Vista.

Evesham has opted for the Home Premium version of Vista. Along with the features of Home Basic (such as advanced searching and other tools), Home Premium brings with it features such as Vista’s snazzy new Aero interface and Media Center. Those interested in the latter will have to purchase a TV card since the Solar Eclipse doesn’t ship with one as standard.

If you want to find out more about Microsoft's latest operating system, read our full review of Windows Vista.

As we expected, the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 combined with a sensible 2GB of Ram managed to show Vista Premium in all its glory. Aero’s Flip 3D runs smoothly, as do the live preview windows displayed along the taskbar.

Our Sysmark 2004 SE benchmark isn’t Vista compatible (we’re expecting an update soon), but in PCmark05 it clocked up a respectable 5,864.

An ATI X1950 Pro graphics card with 256MB of Ram will happily run the latest games. It's not as fast as Nvidia's 8800GTX, but in our tests it clocked up a 3Dmark05 score of 10,189, which indicates it will be more than capable of playing the latest 3D titles without having to cut down on detail.

Evesham ships a 19in TFT with this system, which will disappoint gamers since, like almost every other 19in and 17in monitor, the native resolution sits at 1,280x1,024. That said, including a 20in screen would have pushed the price well over the £1,000 mark.

Other components include a 320GB hard drive, dual-layer DVD writer, DVD-Rom and set of 2.1 Creative speakers.

The Solar Eclipse is a solid Vista Premium PC, but by keeping it under £1,000 Evesham has clearly had to cut a few corners. The lack of a TV tuner is disappointing considering Media Center is included as standard with Vista Premium, while the 19in TFT won’t endear this system to hardened gamers.

That said, Evesham has done a good job on the core specifications. Although not the fastest Intel processor, the 2.4GHz E6600 is more than capable of powering Vista Premium while 2GB of Ram is plenty for the time being.

Of course, if you’re thinking of buying a new PC you might want to stick with good old XP, which Microsoft will be supporting until 2011. Despite the many advantages Vista has over its predecessor, there are reasons to hold off from buying into Microsoft’s latest operating system at present.

If you’ve got a stack of hardware that you’ll want to hook up to this PC, be sure to check on the manufacturers’ sites for Vista drivers – despite the Business version of Vista being launched back in November last year, many manufacturers are dragging their heels when it comes to updating device drivers.

All in all, the Solar Eclipse from Evesham is a decent Vista Premium PC, but at this price you’re always going to have to make sacrifices in certain areas.

See also:
Video review: Microsoft Windows Vista operating system
Video: Bill Gates' Vista launch speech in London
Workshop: Make the switch to Vista

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