Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo EV
Looking more like a 1980s-styled video player than a home computer, Fujitsu-Siemens’ Scaleo EV is designed for a life sitting under your TV as opposed to atop your office desk. Continuing on from the successful Scaleo E series, the EV is a media centre PC designed to operate as the central hub of your home entertainment setup, and as such offers control of your TV, DVDs, music, films, photos and radio via its single remote control.
Running Microsoft's Windows Vista Home Premium software and incorporating Intel's Viiv technology with a Core 2 Duo processor, the EV is ultra capable as both an office PC and home entertainment centre – but it’s the latter we’re most interested in. Housing a chunky 320GB hard disk drive, the Scaleo EV features analogue and digital TV tuners alongside a DVR so you can record one channel to the hard drive while watching another as well as pause and rewind TV, á la Sky+.
Also a DVD player and recorder, the EV supports 7.1 surround sound and HD audio to wring the very best from your films sonically, not to mention your music.
Crucially for an entertainment PC, the Scaleo EV is super-quiet thanks to the new housing and cooling system, its barely-there purr causing no distraction whatsoever to its multi-faceted talents. Connections are bountiful too, with HDMI for HD playback, dual Scarts for hooking up your standard-def TV, and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.
It comes with a wireless keyboard with integrated touchpad for accessing more traditional PC applications like the internet and email via the TV. We like the Scaleo EV. It’s a very capable and well thought out product designed specifically for living room use, but delivers ample PC capability too.
Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo EV
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Best for media
Ditch the DVD player, hi-fi, DVR and all those pesky remotes, because the Scaleo EV is here |
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| Price | £799 |
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| More info | Fujitsu-Siemens's UK website |
Very PC Green PC 478
The Green PC 478 may look like an ordinary – and, to be honest, not very exciting – PC, but it has a few tricks up its black and silver sleeve. Very PC has designed this computer to run as energy efficiently as possible without sacrificing performance.
It does this by employing a low-power Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor running at 1.66GHz that was originally designed for notebooks. It also features a 100GB hard disk with 1GB RAM and a DVD writer with HDMI for HD output. Despite this, the PC 478 is super quiet, and runs using around 36W when on and 59W under full load – in some cases half that of most rival computers, which will result in lower energy bills and reduced environmental impact.
The PC 478 is smaller than most desktop PCs, making it viable as a living room computer. That HDMI port and the Dolby optical audio out make it capable as a home cinema, while the inclusion of a card reader means digital photos can be displayed too. Windows Vista Home Premium comes installed - or XP MCE or Linux if you prefer - for managing your media world.
Connections wise, there are six USB ports (two front, four rear), Firewire, and an HDMI-to-DVI cable takes the place of a direct DVI port. The smaller notebook processor is capable enough for running standard office and home applications on, but was left wanting with more demanding stuff like gaming. But it's a minor criticism against what isn't designed as a high-end machine. What the 478 does do is deliver the performance of rival PCs in the same price point, but at a lesser impact to your energy bills and the world around you. It may not offset the bountiful CO2 emissions created from its manufacture, but hey, every little helps.
Very PC Green PC 478
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Best for environmentalists
Very PC tackles the eco issue with its energy-efficient green machine |
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| Price | £549 |
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| More info | Very PC's UK website |
COMMENTS
You know what....
If you have so much of a problem with the Macintosh then don't f-ing buy one. I am so sick and tired of you Microsoft fanboys bashing something simply because you are too lazy to dedicate the time it takes to really learn a new platform.
Here's a hint people... all of the old stigmas regarding price are gone. Spec a comparable Dell against any Mac and you will see that the prices are close, and that (shocker!) the Mac even comes out cheaper sometimes!
Just because Apple chooses not to compete in the ultra low end does not mean that they are ridiculously expensive. The base Mac comes with a Core Duo.... How come I'm still seeing PC manufacturers selling Pentium Ds or even Celerons even though the last time I checked Intel stopped manufacturing the Pentium.
I may not like Windows but I don't go around to all sorts of online forums bashing Microsoft like you cowards do.
Also, as for the productivity comment, since switching my organization over to the Macintosh we have seen overall productivity increase upwards of 35%. And the comment about OS X for a server... all I can say is it's awfully nice not having to connect remotely on the weekends as to restart the servers with the hope that it will run smoothly for the week to come. Oh and how I miss messing with conflicting services because three different programs like to use the SQL server.
Give me a break already.
The only way one can deliver an educated opinion on an operating system is to learn it, and to learn it you must immerse yourself in it. You can't just use something for a weekend and think you're enough of an expert to say it's horrible. And you can't download an illegal copy of it and run it on an unsupported machine and then blast it's author for having sub par performance.
Bottom line - most of you are pathetic.
Register schizophrenia issues...
Ok, I have to admit I have high hopes from this publication (El Reg) but when it comes to reviews I am left feeling that the editor of Reg Hardware suffers from a serious case of schizophrenia.
How is it that in the same publication there can be ten page in depth reviews of graphics cards that delve to the level of comparing shader operations performance and are so involved that the reader can come away with a feeling that they have an intimate knowlegde of the product and its comparative performance AND THEN THERE ARE ARTICLES LIKE THIS???
This is not a review. This is not an article. This is not even an opinon column. It is a montage of opinion column pretending to be a review and that is deceitful.
There is no structure to the 'review' criteria, or reason/motivation for ratings, or anything of substance. What happened? Did DELL, ACER, ALIENWARE, MESH and APPLE chip in together to get an 'Advertainment' spot on El Reg? Thats certainly what it looks like. I will tell you what this ISN'T: Journalism.
Ed. Be ashamed, be very ashamed.
Joe Cincotta
http://blog.pixolut.com
macs...
"You don't buy a Mac just because the hardware looks good or the software is pretty much immune to viruses; you buy it to get OSX. I think it is worth the extra bucks."
This is the typical closed platform thinking. You have to buy the hardware to get the software. This is why the pcs survived so long, even though they are the worst from a design point.... And now the only difference between a mac and a pc is the small tpm chip that checks the osx licence and this is what keeps apple's computer department alive. Dumping an osx image to a pc and replacing the kernel with its free open source version will result in a totally illegal but working mac clone. The problem is with all those good software and games running under windows xp, who really needs the macos?
Personally for work I run a mix of windows and linux software under windows xp on a company standard asus box, because unfortunately currently xp is the only os that is compatible with almost everything and you can get the most performance for the lowest price mostly from the asian manufacturers who make the western brands too.
Good greif.
For me, I would choose the Mac Pro. I like it because it looks good, the bundled software is great, and I have no great urge to play the newest and greatest FPS. In my book an intuitive user interface comes first; when running OSX, I know I will get that.
You don't buy a Mac just because the hardware looks good or the software is pretty much immune to viruses; you buy it to get OSX. I think it is worth the extra bucks.
If the Dell XPS were a Mac...
I'm surprised that the Dell XPS M2010 gets only 80% in this review. I daresay that if Apple had released this genre-bending machine with those specs at that price then it'd get a few more percent.
What's not been mentioned is the Wii-like motion sensitive remote control that can steer the mouse around the screen with just a flick of your wrist.
Come on, Reg! It's better than 80%. It's not just a pretty case. Don't let the Dell badge get in the way of such an awesome bit of kit!!!
