Home PCs for Every Pocketbook

MODEL               MICROPROCESSOR,     SOFTWARE
                    MEMORY, DISK DRIVE  INCLUDED

MICROCENTER         166-Mhz Cyrix       Microsoft Works,
POWERSPEC           chip, 16 Mb,        Money, and
$499                1 Gb                Entertainment Pack

COMPAQ              166-Mhz MMX         Microsoft Works,
PRESARIO            16 Mb, 2.1 Gb       Money, Bookshelf,
4505                                    Encarta, and Sim
$999                                    City 2000

HP PAVILLION        233-Mhz MMX,        Microsoft Works,
8160                32 Mb, 6 Gb         Compton Encyclopedia,
$1,854                                  Quicken, SimCity 2000,                  
                                        Picture It!

GATEWAY             266-Mhz MMX         Microsoft Home
G6-266              Pentium II          Essentials 98,
$2,499              32 Mb, 6.4 Gb       Quicken SE,

SONY                300-Mhz Pentium II  Microsoft Money,
PCV-240             64Mb, 6.4 Gb        Microsoft 3D Movie
$2,999                                  Maker, Sony Pictures                    
                                        Entertainment sampler

APPLE POWER         233-Mhz PowerPC,    None
MACINTOSH G3        32 Mb, 4Gb
$2,548


MODEL               THE SKINNY

MICROCENTER         This PC is all you'll need for basic
POWERSPEC           computing and Web surfing.
$499

COMPAQ              The king of the sub-$1,000 crowd with
PRESARIO            room for expansion and one-button
4505                access to the Internet.
$999

HP PAVILLION        Like HP itself, it's a safe, reliable choice.
8160                Holds its own in the feature wars,
$1,854              including phone answering capability                    
                    that you will rarely use, but sounds nice.

GATEWAY             Gateway has made an art form of
G6-266              cramming as much as possible into
$2,499              a mid-price PC, including a monitor.

SONY                Stellar sound and video with built-in
PCV-240             TV tuner and camcorder jacks for
$2,999              making and editing home videos.

APPLE POWER         Available via Apple's new online store,
MACINTOSH G3        this speedy Mac is still pricey, compared
$2,548              to this year's inexpensive PCs.


Note: All models include modem and CD-ROM. Prices do not include monitor, 
except for Gateway and Apple.