Palicomp Phoenix i5 Shinobi review

At the top of the case are two USB ports, one of them embellished with the blue plastic that usually indicates USB3. It can function as a USB3 port, but only if you sacrifice one of your rear USB3 ports by connecting it to a USB extension lead that emerges through a grommet at the back of the case – it would be neater if the top port could connect to the spare USB3 header on the motherboard. The other USB port works as you’d expect, though, as does the SDXC card reader next to it. There are also 3.5mm mic and headphone ports. At the back of the case are two USB3 ports, six USB2 ports and an eSATA port. There are also 3.5mm ports for 7.1 analogue surround sound, an optical S/PDIF output and the usual Gigabit Ethernet port.

The system comes with a lovely display. Samsung’s 24in B2430L isn’t the most expensive of monitors – it adds just £100 to the price of the entire system – but it’s bright, has a matt display that won’t pick up reflections and has both VGA and DVI inputs. Colours and backlighting are fairly even, although we’ve seen deeper blacks from other displays.

The Microsoft Wireless 3000 keyboard and mouse set are fairly comfortable to use, although we’re not fans of Microsoft’s curved key layout, which takes a while to get used to. The keys also have shallow travel, so can be tiring to type on. The laser mouse is very comfortable, but only if you’re right-handed. The supplied Logitech S220 2.1 speaker set isn’t particularly subtle in terms of sound quality, but it’s loud and warm with a balanced sound and fairly powerful bass.

Despite the awkward USB3 extension lead sticking out of the back and a keyboard that isn’t entirely to our liking, it’d be hard to do better for £1,000 than this quality PC. The 2TB hard disk and 8GB of memory give it an edge over many similarly specified rivals and earn the i5 Shinobi our coveted Best Buy award.