Everex this morning took advantage of its expertise with low-cost PCs to produce a what it hopes will be the ideal back-to-school system. The Impact GC3502 fights back against the tendency to strip software from budget computers by bundling OpenOffice. This gives a complete and largely Microsoft Office compatible suite out of the box without inflating the price of the system, Everex says. Also going against the grain is the company's choice of a 1.5GHz VIA C7-D, which transforms the desktop into an environmentally friendly PC: the CPU consumes only 2W on average and 20W at peak, eliminating most of the power footprint compared even to some notebook processors.

Cost savings from OpenOffice and the CPU are rolled into the hardware details. The reference GC3502 includes 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard disk, and a DVD/CD-RW drive. It also ships with Vista Home Basic and bundles the stereo speakers frequently omitted from budget systems at a price of $298; Everex says the PC is available at Wal-Mart today.