Product Reviews

Shuttle is best known for its bare-bones cases, but the company makes complete systems too. The G5 8300M is Shuttle's first Media Center PC. The sleek cube case looks great and can be tucked neatly under a TV. Unfortunately, the Media Center remote control receiver isn't integrated into the case and somewhat ruins the looks of the system.

Powering the G5 8300M gave us two surprises. First, it was very quiet, unlike a lot of Shuttle systems. Closer inspection revealed a large, quiet fan on the rear and a Silent-X power supply. Second, the silver mirrored front has a display underneath that shines through when there's power; when there's no power you can't see it.

When the PC is in standby mode it just shows the date and time; in Media Center mode it shows the menu you're on and also displays playback information. It's a nice addition, although it can't be used to select an MP3 to play when the TV is off.

The G5 8300M's specifications are fairly typical for a Media Center PC:

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a 3GHz Pentium 4 LGA775 processor sits in an Intel 915G motherboard, using 512MB of DDR RAM in a dual-channel configuration. This resulted in good 2D benchmark scores and provides enough power for the PC's intended job.

The 8300M comes with integrated graphics. However, it is disabled as Shuttle has opted for ATI's Radeon X300 graphics card instead. While this doesn't produce very good 3D benchmark results, the card is cheap and adds TV out, DVI and analogue outputs. The final installed card is the analogue TV tuner, which also has S-video and stereo phono inputs, so it's easy to connect to a set-top box, while the onboard high-definition 7.1 surround sound is good enough for playing movies.

A 200GB hard disk provides storage space. This should be enough for most people's MP3 collection and should also leave enough room to record a decent number of TV programmes, though heavy users will probably want a larger 250GB or 300GB disk instead. A 16X dual-layer DVD rewriter provides a way of backing up recorded TV that you want to keep.

As this PC is designed to be used via a remote control, Shuttle doesn't bundle a monitor, keyboard or mouse. It's the lack of the latter two peripherals that could cause a problem, as the Media Center operating system still has some options that work better when used with a keyboard and mouse, so we would suggest buying a cheap wireless set.

The G5 8300M is everything we've come to expect from Shuttle: sleek, stylish and well made. However, the lack of keyboard and mouse and the 200GB hard disk keep it from earning top marks.