Tranquil ixLS review

Small form factor PCs

Interesting product but pricey. How about a roundup of all these types of unit in the Mac Mini bracket. I'm sure many people would like a decent PC for general use that doesn't involve a hulking, noisy box sitting on or under your desk, but still want a big screen and proper keyboard, and don't want a laptop. The Atom powered systems are just too slow but other options seem limited.

By AdamD6 on 22 Jan 2011

Not my choice for a media center PC

I've used a PC for a media center for 6 years now, and am completely sold on the concept. It's like having Sky+ And access to iPlayer (and other channel equivalents) AND access to all your music, photos, videos etc from one controller.

But to do this you don't need power. I recently rebuilt my media center using my old Evesham ebox case and a dual core 2GHz processor with 2 GB. This is plenty and it works very smoothly - or as smoothly as microsoft OS allows! I paid about £200 for the components for my rebuild.

An 80GB SSD is a ridiculous choice. An energy efficient (i.e. slow) 1Tb is what you need if you plan to hold any realistic quantity of media.

It also annoys me that you constantly use a gaming benchmark - even for computers which are not designed for games. It's like saying that a sports car doesn't have a large boot - Correct but completely misses the point.

...And I think that's the problem with your review. You say that people in the office wouldn't know what to do with it. Well that is because you've missed the point of what a media center does. Use one and you'll see, and then you'll see just how inappropriate this machine's spec is for the job.

By ironbath on 24 Jan 2011

@ironbath

The idea that you might want to combine gaming and media centre capability on the same box is not ridiculous. After all, X-Box and PS-3 do this. There must be a market for an "entertainment PC" which basically drives your large screen and your audio system with everything that makes sense in that configuration.

By JohnAHind on 24 Jan 2011

@Ironbath

"An 80GB SSD is a ridiculous choice"

I use a 60GB SSD on one of my HTPC and a 32GB onthe other. It makes alot of sence.

It makes the PC's very quiet (one is totally silent) and all 3TB of storage (DVD's, Music and TV recordings)is on my Home Server so can be acessed from either PC. It's a much better soloution than sticking a 1TB hard disk in each PC.

By JStairmand on 24 Jan 2011

Pricing

It's worth noting that there are now fixed Media Centres on offer too - with some savings to be had (over £100 savings).

Also - check out the Daily Offers page - where you can save further on the ixLS and the ixLS Media Centres.

http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/daily_of
fers.html

By tranquilpc on 24 Jan 2011

@JStairmand

I totally agree that if you have a home server then you don't need a large HDD, but that concept is far from the norm, and although the SDD is silent which is certaintly a benefit in a media center, I'd just personally find it difficult to justify that extra cost for an application where there is no need for an especially fast drive.

By ironbath on 24 Jan 2011

@JohnAHind

Yes, I can see that some people do want to combine games and media....And those people are best suited by buying a Gaming machine (or go the Xbox, PS route). But my point is that it is pointless to compare a machine that is not designed for gaming, against a gaming benchmark.

By ironbath on 24 Jan 2011

Free Media Computer

I got a 'free' media centre with my phone which came with blueray player, bbc iplayer, 4od, itv player and a £30 upgrade meant it paused and recorded live tv through an epg, this is also with all mp3 playing abilites. What extra do these pc's really have over a PS3 to justify splashing out on? The PS3 also connects wirelessly to my NAS to keep streaming music around as well!!

By Geddy3001 on 24 Jan 2011

Small PCs not just for media

One of the reasons iMacs and Mac Minis are popular is because they are compact and stylish. Many people want a general PC for surfing, editing photos and videos, a few casual games, and a bit of work. They don't necessarily want the large, ugly boxes that have changed little in 10 years besides changing from grey to black. In most cases however smaller PCs tend to have underpowered Atom processors. Where is the economical, Windows version of the Mac Mini?

By AdamD6 on 24 Jan 2011

Ripped Off

I was totally ripped off by this company , ordered a PC from them and it was delivered late. After I installed Win7 ult and added a Ceton USB tuner. The CPU will crash and freeze at least once a day if I leave it running after the crash the BSOD will come up. Stay away from this company at all costs. The support is horrible. I have to figure out on my own the is causing the issue for a $1000 piece of junk.

By Tranquil_Sucks on 21 Dec 2011

Very Bad experience with Tranquil PC

Actually the worst experience I had when ordering online ...

I preordered an Imono that should have arrived within the weeks.
It arrived 3 weeks later (MB was not first not available, then SSD ...).
I even proposed for them to send me the component without the Motherboard, telling them I would buy it separately and install it myself (it was available on other websites.)
They refused arguing they were doing some serious tests on units before shipping them.

3 weeks later I received a unit that was externaly defective :
- Feets were plastic whereas they were metal on their website
- A corner was badly manufactured (1 cm of steel was missing !)

And internally also :
- The unit wasn't powering on !

After debugging and unscrewing the case I saw that the RAM was not correctly fitted in the Motherboard !
Once fitted it started to power on, endly .... !

The only good point for them was that they were reactive on sending a new case to me.
Outside this everything was a bad experience for me :
- I was misled on the tests (how can test a unit that is simply not powering on ?)
- I have spent 8 hours on the delay & debugging issues
- I have written directly to the CEO to express my concerns : Never had a direct answer from him.
- I have asked for some rebate on futur order (I Really wanted to order more for them as their case are nice looking). I called 5 times since one month to have their position : I have never been called back or contacted about it ...

So for me this is the first and last time I m ordering from them !

For the others : I wish you to have more luck than me :-)

By dan12 on 10 Jan 2012