On the face of it, Apple’s Mac Mini makes most ‘small form-factor’ PCs look like a pile of junk. The Mini’s ultra-compact design also makes it ideal for use in an office or as a stylish little media centre in the living room. Evidently, Dell has taken note – hence the appearance of its Inspiron Zino range of compact PCs.
Splits from Atom: Dell’s Inspiron Zino HD
It’s always been surprising that no Windows PC has ever really come along to challenge the Mac Mini – especially given Apple’s creeping price hikes. The Mac Mini is now far from the low-cost Mac that it was originally intended to be, with the cheapest incarnation currently priced at £510. That’s hardly a bargain given that it doesn’t include a monitor, keyboard or mouse.
We’ve seen a few compact ‘nettop’ boxes, such as Acer’s Revo, in recent months, but these have tended to use low-power Atom processors that couldn’t pass muster as a proper Desktop PC. However, Dell’s Zino HD packs a more powerful Desktop processor.
Dell simply describes the Inspiron Zino HD as a “mini Desktop computer” but its design clearly suggests that it’s intended as a living room media centre too. Measuring 195mm square and 85mm high, it’s larger than the 163 x 163 x 50mm Mac Mini. The Zino HD isn’t quite as neatly designed as the Apple, either. The black plastic chassis looks a bit cheap when sitting alongside the silvery metallic trim of the Mac. Read the rest of this entry »
The Pavilion Elite HPE-180 stands at the pinnacle of the HP’s home PC line-up and sports spec to match. It has a 2.80GHz Intel Core i7-860 processor, 8GB of DDR 3 memory, a Blu-ray combo drive and, to make use of all that memory, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.
HP’s Pavilion Elite HPE-180: merlot trim? More vin de table than premier cru
There’s a question mark hanging over the unbranded “special edition” Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 graphics card as it only supports DirectX 10. That’s something of a shame as AMD has a range of DirectX 11 cards. So from the start, the HPE-180 isn’t quite as elite as its branding – and more importantly, its price – might suggest.
You won’t be able to tell from the photos but the front of the case is well endowed with ports and connectors as they are covered by flaps and stealth doors. Read the rest of this entry »
Review The Aspire Revo is Acer’s take on Nvidia’s Ion platform so that’s a good place to start with this review.
Acer’s Aspire Revo: Atom and Ion on board
Ion started life as the GeForce 9300, which is a chipset that connects Intel’s Core 2 processors to decent integrated graphics. In our comparison of Desktop chipsets with integrated graphics we were quite clear that the GeForce 9300 was better than Intel’s G45, specifically in the area of HD movie decoding. If you’re building a Core 2-based PC with integrated graphics, we strongly recommend you choose GeForce 9300.
When Intel launched the Desktop Atom processor, it made the questionable decision to ally the 4W TDP CPU with the ancient D945G chipset, which has weak graphics and a TDP of 15W.
The combination of Atom and D945G has been responsible for the creation of the market for ‘nettop’ Desktop PCs that offer basic services such as e-mail and browsing the web at a low price. There’s no expectation that Atom and D945G can be used for gaming or to watch HD movies, and the graphics are so weak that it’s unable to run Windows Vista properly.
Intel could have chosen to support Atom with the G45 chipset, which is a capable piece of silicon, but it didn’t go down that route, undoubtedly to protect its higher-value Desktop offerings. So Nvidia has leapt in to fill what it perceives as a gap in the market.
Designed for edge-on operation
The Ion chipset is a rebranding exercise for the GeForce 9300, this time offered with support for Atom rather than Core 2. Nvidia is keen to show that you get better value for money by spending your cash on the GPU rather than the CPU, so it’s cockahoop that a manufacturer as big as Acer has rolled out the Aspire Revo. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Shuttle has managed a feat of engineering with the XPC SX58H7. It has shoehorned a Core i7 motherboard into a small(ish) form-factor case – it measures 325 x 208 x 189mm – of the kind we’ve seen on models such as the SP45H7.
Shuttle’s XPC SX58H7: engineering miracle?
It is the work of moments to remove the main cover, drive bay, ICE fan unit and CPU cooler, and lay the innards open to view. The layout is similar to other XPCs, although this is the first time that we have seen twin PCI Express graphics slots in a Shuttle. It’s not the first time Shuttle has used this feature as you can see from the spec of the SX38P2, but it is the first time we’ve seen it on our test bench. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Back in 2006, Yamaha established a special R&D department to look at Desktop products. The thinking behind this was to utilise some of the company’s high-end AV know-how and apply it to a new range of products further down the food chain.
Yamaha’s TSX-130 iPod dock includes CD player, DAB radio and alarm clock
From this initiative comes the sleek TSX-130 iPod docking station featuring a CD player and DAB radio. At £349 it’s not cheap, but this does have to be seen in the context of both the target audience and the level of functionality. Think middle-aged couple wanting a quality solution for the study or bedroom. Indeed, it even features a clock with an easy to program dual alarm and you can pick a favourite song to wake up to. Read the rest of this entry »
