Make sure your computer has a modem. This sounds silly but some systems, particularly on the low end, charge extra for this necessity. If you have or hope to get high-speed Internet service, then you'll also need what's called an Ethernet port , which looks like an oversized phone jack. Most add-ons now use USB, so you'll be safe when you go to buy that digital camera or scanner. We graded each computer on a scale of one to five on how easy it was to set up and use.
X stands for the speed of the very first CD-ROM drive, or base speed.
Measured on a scale of one through five. We looked at the overall quality of the components, such as monitors, graphics cards and speakers. Firewire, developed by Apple Computer and the home electronics industry, allows for fast, easy connections between computers and devices like digital cameras. A unit of data typically used to express storage capacity. Equivalent to 1,073,741,824 bytes .