Product Reviews

When the Mac Mini hit the shops back in January 2005, we all shook our heads and wondered: why PC manufacturers couldn't do something like that? Over the next few months, we saw several attempts at PCs that were supposed to be an answer to the Mini and they all missed the mark. Most of them were much larger and were badly designed, while a lot of them got far too hot when they'd be on for a while. We were beginning to give up hope - and then Evesham sent us its Mini PC.

HAVE WE MET BEFORE?

The most striking thing about the Mini PC is how oddly familiar it is. Judging by looks alone, it's less of an answer to the Mac Mini than a tribute - sort of Bjorn Again to Apple's Abba. It's exactly the same size as the Mac Mini, has the same rounded edges and corners, and the slot-loading DVD burner sits close to the top of the front, just like it does on the Mac Mini. And like the Mac Mini, when you purchase the Mini PC, you only get the base unit - you have to buy the monitor, keyboard and mouse separately.

get connected

Sadly, also like the Mac Mini, the Mini PC only has two USB ports. You'll have to plug a USB hub into one of the USB ports and then plug either your mouse or keyboard into that. This means extra clutter on your desk - a shame when you have such a stylish, minimalist PC.

The Mini PC also has a FireWire port. This gives fast connection to external hard disks and to digital video cameras. Not many people are likely to use a system like this for demanding jobs like video editing - it would have been more sensible to replace this with a third USB port.

Apart from the USB and FireWire connectors there are speaker and mic outputs (there's also a tiny speaker built in to the case), an S-Video connector and a DVI output. The S-Video connector comes with an S-Video-to-component converter, which is designed for outputting

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component video to devices such as an HDTV. We watched some HDTV footage on an HD-ready JVC screen. The video played without any problems - there was no shuddering, no dropped frames and everything looked crisp and smooth. The Intel graphics driver, however, although it supported all HDTV resolutions available, could only output a PC signal to a TV at resolutions up to 1280x768 and there was no support for true HD resolution. This will leave Windows looking a bit fuzzy on larger screens (though video playback should still look fine).

THE SECRET INSIDeE

This system is sealed shut and not designed to be opened. That's because the motherboard is, as you can imagine, very small. This means all the components are tightly packed and not easy to get to.

There isn't that much you can upgrade in any case. There's one free half-height PCI slot for the addition of a wireless network card. This is about the only easy upgrade option. There's just one memory slot, so if you want to add more memory you'll have to remove what's in there already. If you do want to upgrade to 1GB of RAM, you'll need to send it to Evesham, at a cost of £30. Basically, this system is like a notebook - you wouldn't expect to be able to upgrade most parts of a laptop yourself and it's the same here.

SURPRISINGLY POWERFUL

The Mini PC is based on Intel's 2GHz Pentium M 760 with 512MB of 533MHz DDR memory. This is clearly a good combination - the Mini PC scored an impressive 93.12 points in our performance test. That's more than powerful enough to handle any current 2D software, even photo editing.

The only thing slowing it down is the hard disk. The Mini PC uses an 80GB laptop hard disk that spins at a standard (for a laptop) 5400rpm. Desktop hard disks have long since moved on to 7200rpm, though. As a reult, the Mini PC isn't quite as nippy as a desktop PC of the same specification.

If you want to squeeze the best performance out of the Mini PC, pay an extra £60 and buy the model with 1GB of RAM. The Mini PC didn't perform as well in our gaming tests. Our Doom 3 3D benchmark ran at only 7 frames per second, so this isn't a gaming system.

BUYING DECISIONS

This is the most stylish compact PC we've seen and the only Windows-based system that even comes close to being as nice as the Mac Mini. If you're prepared to pay a high price for a PC that's stylish enough to look good in your designer living room, then this is it