Specialising in the retail market, Emachines has made a name for itself in the US by offering well-specified PCs at affordable prices. Over here its systems are sold exclusively through high-street giants Dixons and PC World.

Built around Intel's low-cost Celeron processor, the M5116 is the company's latest offering in the mobile market. The key selling point with this model is 'wireless widescreen' - a large display that lets you enjoy the latest DVD movies and see more of your documents, while wireless networking gives you the freedom to surf the net without being tied to a desk.

Weighing in at just under 3kg and sporting a 15.4in widescreen, the M5116 is in the desktop replacement category. You won't want to drag it around outside for too long, but it's still portable enough to move easily from room to room. The WXGA TFT panel runs at 1,280 x 800 pixels and, although it's not the sharpest we've seen, it gives a suitably crisp image.

The chassis provides enough room for a decent sized keyboard and a combo drive offering 24-speed CD writing and eight-speed DVD reading. Pointer control is via a touchpad and this one includes a separate vertical scroll bar on the right that acts like a mouse-wheel. It sounds good in theory but we found it a little awkward to use - a proper wheel between the two pad buttons would have been preferable. That said, if the vertical bar was textured it might provide more control.

Other notable external features include one mini-Firewire and three USB2 connectors, VGA and S-Video outputs, the usual array of audio facilities and a parallel port. For wired communications there's a 56K modem and Ethernet, while Broadcom hardware provides a dual-band 54Mbits/sec 802.11g wireless option. There's also a pair of built-in stereo speakers and a smattering of blue LEDs.

Along with a 2.4GHz Celeron processor, complete with 256KB of Level 2 cache and a 400MHz FSB (front-side bus), our review model came with 512MB of DDR-Ram and a 40GB hard disk. For video there is an onboard Intel 852GM chipset, named 'Extreme Graphics', which shares up to 64MB of main memory. This is a step up from earlier integrated options but it doesn't match up to the latest hardware from ATI or Nvidia, and rules out some of the latest 3D games.

On the software side the notebook comes with Windows XP Home and Microsoft Works 6 to cover basic productivity. Money 2003 helps with personal finances, while PowerDVD makes good use of the display.

We had some initial compatibility problems with the M5116, and our Sysmark tests, but it finally succumbed to give a score of 180. This is roughly what we'd expect from a Celeron, and the machine is more than capable of performing standard office tasks. While a 3Dmark of 1,384 would indicate the graphics chip isn't suited for anything else, the system knocked out 70fps in Unreal Tournament.

Emachines claims an average battery life of three hours, but in our tests it came in at one hour, 32 minutes. You'll get even less time if you're planning to go wireless, so working away from the mains isn't recommended. The wireless facilities themselves are easy to configure and tweak to get the best connections.

Coming in at £900 including VAT, the M5116 is a good budget buy and the widescreen and wireless technology make it doubly appealing. There are lighter and better-specified machines around, and if mobility is your prime concern we'd recommended looking elsewhere. However, given the price and availability, it's hard to fault.

Contact: PC World 0870 2420 444
www.emachines.com

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