Evesham/AOpen Mini PC Plus
PrintThe Intel-powered alternative to the Mac Mini
Posted in Reviews, 22nd December 2005 13:04 GMT
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Alongside the CPU is 512MB of PC4200 DDR 2 memory and an 80GB hard drive, pretty much what you get in and entry level PC these days. The Intel i915GM chipset's graphics core uses at least 8MB of the system memory and can dynamically allocate more. The optical drive is from Matsushita and handles all current formats. It will write to DVD±R media at 8x, DVD±RW media at 4x, DVD+R DL at 2.4x and DVD-RAM at 5x. That's not as fast as the latest generation of 5.25in drives, but it is a top of the range for a notebook drive. Finally, there's a small internal speaker that is good enough for the Windows sounds, but not for music.
Evesham has pre-installed Windows XP Media Center Edition on the Mini PC, although no remote control was supplied, so don't expect to be able to sit in your sofa and control it. You can get an external TV tuner as an upgrade option, but oddly no remote or USB receiver seems to be on the list of accessories. Evesham doesn't supply a keyboard or mouse either, which makes this look more and more like a Mac Mini in terms of what you get for your money. You can of course add this as well as a display, more memory, a larger hard drive and a few other accessories at the time you order the system.
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