SAN FRANCISCO (07/26/2000) - New systems from Hewlett-Packard Co. hit both the power and midrange charts this month, along with debuts from Axis Systems Inc. and Tiny Computers. The US$2115 HP Pavilion 9600A-850 lands at number two on the power list with a zippy PC WorldBench 2000 score of 152 and many extra features, such as CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives and a network card. HP nabs second place on the midrange list as well, with the $1699 Pavilion 9600A-700, which has the power to handle just about any application. Its somewhat poorly designed interior makes adding cards and drives difficult, however.
Also new on the power list is the $2099 Axis Systems Terra AXA K7-850, in the fourth spot. The Terra AXA comes with a whopping 256MB of RAM and features rivaling those of the HP Pavilion 9600A-850. Our final newcomer is the $1799 Internet Writer 733 from Tiny Computers, number four on the midrange list. Tiny is new to the United States from Great Britain, and if the Internet Writer is any indication, full-featured is the name of its game. The Internet Writer 733 comes with a 6X/4X/32X CD-RW drive, an 8X DVD-ROM drive, a Lexmark Z11 Color Jetprinter, a USB flatbed color scanner, and lots of home-oriented software for the whole family.
Kirk Steers is a contributing editor for PC World.