Product Reviews

Since bringing us the original Mini PC, Evesham has given its smallest offering a thorough revamp. The new chassis, made by AOpen, exudes a hi-tech air, and the fact that Evesham has managed to squeeze a full-blown PC into such a tiny chassis is still little short of amazing.

The first hint of the Mini PC's new specifications is the Viiv badge on the front, but Evesham has gone above and beyond Intel's base specifications. The CPU is a notebook Core 2 Duo T7200 clocked at 2GHz, which made short work of our application benchmarks. Combined with a practical 1GB of RAM (albeit running at 533MHz rather than the full 667MHz supported), the overall score of 1.15 is easily the fastest we've seen from such a tiny PC.

While the Mini PC is perfect for those looking for compact power, there are compromises. The black-and-graphite finish looks smart, but as soon as you touch the flexible and poorly fitting plastic top, the feeling of quality is ruined. The bright blue power light isn't entirely stylish either, although the slot-loading DVD-RAM drive gives the front of the system a touch of elegance.

As such, it won't embarrass you on display in a living room, especially as it's so quiet - one of the key benefits of using a notebook processor is its lesser cooling requirements. The TV tuner is a welcome addition in this context, and we found the signal quality absolutely fine in our central London labs. As specified by Viiv, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is the operating system of choice, and Evesham bundles the standard MCE remote control.

One point to note is that it's a single tuner; there are no twin tuners available in the mini-PCI format, which is all that's available in the Mini PC. The hard disk is also a slight disappointment: as the chassis is only

ADVERTISEMENT

large enough to accommodate a notebook model, limitations are inevitable, and the 100GB Fujitsu disk will soon feel small if you record lots of TV. Should you decide that you don't need the TV tuner, you can specify a WLAN card instead for no extra cost.

Even compared to Apple's Mac mini, the back of the Mini PC is sparse. When you consider the absence of any PS/2 ports, the inclusion of just two USB 2 ports means that once you have a keyboard and mouse connected you'll need a USB hub before you can add any more peripherals. There's a FireWire connector, which is potentially useful, but we'd still prefer to see another USB port or two. There are three 3.5mm audio jacks, one of which doubles as an optical S/PDIF port, with an accompanying converter in the box. There's also a video-out port, which connects to an adapter, supplying S-Video, composite and component video outlets, but there's no scart.

You can almost forget about any upgrade potential: opening the Mini PC is a fiddly job and, although merely taking it apart won't invalidate the warranty, you run the risk of damaging something while it's open. What's more, the single SODIMM slot is occupied by the 1GB stick. The CPU is a potential upgrade - it's already possible to buy faster Core 2 Duo CPUs than the T7200, and there shouldn't be a problem swapping them over. There's no way to upgrade the onboard graphics, which are supplied by Intel's GMA 950 chipset.

While there's plenty to like here, the Mini PC isn't perfect and faces increasingly stiff competition. Shuttle's mini X 100HA is identical in price and offers twice the hard disk capacity and five USB ports, a memory card reader and a graphics card that's even up to a little gaming. It's slower overall, though, with its 1.6GHz T2050 Core Duo CPU and 512MB of RAM. If you're prepared to go through the hassle of installing Windows via Boot Camp, Apple's Mac mini is also good value for money. Again, it isn't quite as fast, but when you specify the same-sized hard disk and RAM, you arrive at a price of just £544, with two extra USB ports, WLAN as standard and indisputably better looks.

As such, the Mini PC's price needs to drop further for it to outshine the Mac mini. But if you want the sheer power of Core 2 Duo in a tiny chassis, the Evesham is a great choice: it's quiet and boasts the distinct advantage of a TV tuner and MCE.