58 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2004
HP Media Center Photosmart PC
Squat, compact, versatile,
and inexpensive, HP’s take
on the Media Center phe-
nomenon impressed us
with a few elegant and func-tional innovations.
With a Pentium 4 520
(that’s a 2.8GHz P4 Prescott
with an 800MHz frontside
bus), half a gigabyte of
memory, and a
Radeon X300 SE
PCI-E graphics
card at its core,
the HP Media
Center didn’t win
any performance
contests. In fact,
with the excep-
tion of Toshiba’s
Qosmio laptop, it
placed last in our
Halo and Doom
3 benchmarks—a
clear indicator
that this is no
gaming machine.
But what the
spunky-looking PClacks in speed, it makes up
for in versatility. The top
of the Media Center fea-
tures a built-in dock for HP
Photosmart digicams—letting
you easily dock your camera
and extract photographs.
Even more impressive is the
presence of the HP Personal
Media Drive, a removable
extra 160GB hard drive (the
system comes equipped with
a 160GB 7,200rpm internal
drive as well) that functions
like a VCR cassette. This
drive, which draws its power
from a built-in USB 2.0 port,
plugs right into the front of
the PC and can function as a
backup drive or as a means
of permanently storing
TV, music, and more. Extra
drives can be purchased for
$250 each. A 9-in-1 mediacard reader rounds out the
storage capabilities.
Unfortunately, these
innovations are all rendered
moot by the fact that our test
system continually crashed
when going into and out
of sleep mode. A PC crash
during a gaming session is
frustrating; missing Game
2 of the Yankees-Sox series
because of a crash is a car-
dinal sin; this forced us to
leave the HP Media Center
on at all times. Hey, at least
the mild-mannered compo-
nents mean it can operate
quietly and coolly in your
living room.Niveus Media Center: Rainier Edition
Niveus, a small PC shop locat-
ed in Los Gatos, California,
won our hearts with the
Rainier Edition. The company’s
elegant approach to its first
Media Center PC has resulted
in a cool, nearly silent system
that deserves a rightful place
in the living room.
That’s right, we said silent.
While not necessarily critical
in conventional desktop PCs,
we found silence to be a rare
treat while testing this batch of
Media Centers. Contrary to the
nearly complete lack of sound
generated by a Tivo unit, the
wheezing and whining PC fans
drove us crazy. This made the
fanless design of the Rainier
Media Center extremely
appealing. The system’s case is
essentially one large heatsink
and features long, thin fins
up and down each side of the
chassis. Also gratifying: The
lack of any lights on the PC’s
case. This allowed us to set upthe Niveus
rig wherever
we wanted,
without fear
of intrusive,
movie-dis-
turbing light
pollution.
Our test
system was spec’d
right in the middle
of the road in terms of
power and performance, with
a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of
RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.
In benchmark tests, the sys-
tem’s Radeon 9600XT placed
it second (behind Alienware)
in Halo and Doom 3 tests.
(Optional upgrades include a
3.2GHz P4, 320GB hard drive,
and nVidia GeForce 6600 PCI-
E videocard.)
The Rainier impressed us
with its reliability. Of the
systems reviewed here, it
crashed the least, meaning it
rarely failed to record the pro-grams we specified. Still, any
amount of crashing—even
two times out of 100—
is unacceptable, particularly
when Tivo, the Media Center’s
primary competitor, has a
failure rate of well below
1 percent.
Whether we were testing in
our living room, office, or bed-
room, one thing became pain-
fully clear to us: Any extrane-ous noise or light
pollution sucks, and
will greatly diminish your
enjoyment of these Media
Centers. For this reason, we
found Niveus’ silent approach
the best of the batch. For now,
you’ll be hard pressed to find
a more appropriate Media
Center PC for your needs.Media Centers
VERDICT 5 $1,600
http://www.hp.comVERDICT 9 $3,000
http://www.niveusmedia.comNiveus Media Center: Rainier Edition
system was spec’d
right in the middle
of the road in terms of
power and performance, with
a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of
RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.
In benchmark tests, the sys-
tem’s Radeon 9600XT placed grams we specified. Still, anyenjoyment of these Media
Centers. For this reason, wesystem was spec’d
right in the middle
of the road in terms of
power and performance, with
a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of
RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.
In benchmark tests, the sys-ous noise or light
pollution sucks, and
will greatly diminish your
enjoyment of these Media