PC World fleshes out 'carbon neutral' PC

PC World has released more information about and made new claims for its forthcoming green PC.

It will have a recycled aluminium case and use sustainably forested wood in the screen bezel, mouse and keyboard, and the company is purchasing carbon offsets to match the consequences of its manufacturing process.

After announcing plans to back in February to build the PC, the retailer has kept quiet about the project, until last week when The Independent ran a story with more information about the pricing and manufacturing of the machine.

The company says that at around 40W, its PC will use between 13 and 17 per cent of the energy of a standard desktop and will retail for around £399, with the screen costing an extra £100. PC World also claims that the screen, mouse and keyboard casings will be made from sustainable beech, ash or sapele, making them the first mass-market wooden computer accessories.

In addition, the case is designed to act as a heatsink for the processor, and by using an external power supply the computer will be fanless. PC World also claims that despite the energy efficiency, the machine will have the same capacity as a standard desktop.

"In the past, environmental products have asked consumers to make a compromise. That's why they haven't been very successful -- previous low-power units have performed very slowly so they can't do as much as a standard computer. But this is going to have the same sort of power as one of the average units on sale at Christmas -- and it will cost about the same, too," Peter Lyons from DSG International, PC World's parent company, told The Independent.

CNET.co.uk's sister site ZDNet.co.uk was not able to get formal comment from PC World at the time of writing, but in a brief conversation, Peter Lyons confirmed that the machine would be released in October and that the retailer was looking at developing two models -- one with an integrated screen and one without. The smaller machine is the one that is expected to ship in the autumn.

Despite providing details on what the machine will look like and how it will run, not much information has emerged on who will be building the machine for PC World, nor on its internal components.

The only piece of real information on the actual technology used in the PC is that it will be running Microsoft's Vista operating system. Critics of Vista have pointed out that the operating system is the most power-hungry operating system that Microsoft has ever produced, making it a strange choice for an environmentally friendly PC.

When the PC World project was first announced, a spokesman for the Green Party suggested the choice of Vista for a so-called green machine could be a mistake, and called on retailers to offer more PCs without Windows pre-installed.

"It would be a good thing if PC World were to offer operating systems other than Vista. XP or no operating system preinstalled at all would be ideal," the Green Party spokesman told ZDNet.co.uk.