2005-10-26 - SFT: "The PC is heading to the living room"
 A PC intended for the living room needs to be powerful and quiet. In addition to stylish. These requirements are met by the Shuttle XPC System M1000. Its Hi-Fi format enables to fit easily in an existing home entertainment system. How good is the Shuttle XPC System M1000? So good that the German lifestyle magazine made it its winner in the latest group test of media center PCs.
The editors of SFT knew what they wanted from a living room PC: an all-in-one solution from all of one's entertainment needs. The key elements? "A DVD writer, a large hard drive, TV tuners and support for surround sound." On top of this: "Lots of connection options, accessories, performance and quietness." Four media center PCs were called on to meet this challenge. But none could match the Shuttle XPC System M1000.
"Shuttle relies on the Centrino technology featuring low power consumption, and includes a Pentium M 740 running at 1.73GHz." No wonder that the editors found this choice an especially wise one: "As a result the power consumption is a paltry 20 Watt in standby mode and even 77 Watts while playing a DVD is pleasantly low."
The Shuttle XPC System M1000 was the only unit tested to feature sound from industry leader Creative, with the Soundblaster Live! 24-bit chip, delivering "impressive sound quality." Accompanied of course by good image quality for home cinema fans and 7.1 sound output. As for the rest? "The remaining features also impressed us: dual DVD writer, dual TV tuners (analog or DVB-T,) card reader, a bay for a 2.5" hard drive, and the stylish MCE keyboard from Shuttle make this XPC Media Center our winner." Of special interest: the noise level. With 0.7 Sone the Shuttle XPC System M1000 is the quietest PC tested while running Windows.
Summary:
"SFT Test Winner 12/2005"
Pros:
- Very good features
- Low power consumption
| Performance: |
1,8 - Good |
| Features: |
1,4 - Very Good |
| Usability: |
1,5 - Good |
| Suitability: |
1,4 - Very Good |
| Final Note: |
1,6 - Good |
Source: SFT, issue 12/2005 |