Moore Medio Home Theatre PC

Average specs let down an otherwise impressive system

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Price: £1999

Manufacturer: Moore Innovations

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Verdict

Pros: Good multimedia capabilities; stylish

Cons: Expensive; no monitor or speakers as standard

Verdict: A great multimedia PC, but it has an average core specification and a high price tag

Rory Reid, Personal Computer World 29 Nov 2004

As its name suggests, Moore's Medio Home Theatre PC is clearly aimed at those who want to do more than just check their emails and surf the web. For the most part, its components have been chosen specifically because of their suitability for use in a living room-based entertainment system.

A 2.8GHz Pentium 4 and 512MB of Ram may seem inadequate in comparison to the components in Sony's Vaio, but the Medio does include a large Zalman Silent CPU cooler which helps keep noise levels to an absolute minimum.

It also looks great: rather than a standard tower case, the company has opted for a custom desktop-style case that looks more like a games console than a PC.

Although processor speed has been sacrificed, a Radeon 9600 XT graphics card provides strong graphics capabilities. In theory, the Medio can deliver better 3D graphics performance than gaming devices such as Xbox or Gamecube and, in practice, it doesn't disappoint.

It came in with a healthy 3Dmark03 score of 3,774, while Unreal Tournament played at a consistently smooth 67fps. A Sysmark score of 159 shows it will happily speed through standard PC applications, though overall system performance isn't anything out of the ordinary.

The Medio excels in its ability to handle video. There's a digital terrestrial TV tuner that allows you to watch the various Freeview channels currently available, provided you live in an area with strong enough coverage and have an appropriate aerial.

The PC also includes Showshifter, which provides the kind of facilities you'd expect from a system equipped with Windows Media Center Edition. You can watch and pause live TV, arrange your music collection, and view images in a slideshow.

Unfortunately, you'll have to reach around the back of the unit to connect a digital camera to one of its four USB slots, as there aren't any mounted on the front.

TV programmes and other data can be stored on either of the Medio's two 160GB hard drives. Given its intended purpose, we would have preferred to see more storage, but there is enough to record approximately 320 hours of video at high quality.

If you run out of space you can always back up your prized recordings onto DVD. The Medio features an eight-speed drive that can write up to 4.7GB of data to both plus and minus format discs, though it would have been good to see one of the new dual-layer drives. A slot-loading device would have been equally appealing.

A Creative Audigy 2 soundcard handles audio, a popular choice for both gamers and movie fans thanks to its surround-sound capabilities. Unfortunately, you'll have to buy your own set of multi-channel speakers, as the standard Medio package doesn't include any.

Likewise, it doesn't include a monitor, so you'll have to part with at least another £500 to get a display that will do this PC justice in your living room.

The Medio package is rounded off with a Gyration wireless keyboard, and a gyroscopic optical mouse that allows you to control the PC from a distance of up to 10 metres, simply by waving it in the direction of the screen. This is a useful feature, but gamers will probably prefer to use the mouse in a traditional manner on the desktop.

A voucher for Half-Life 2 was included with our review model, alongside several other games that form a part of the software bundle.

The Medio Home Theatre PC is outclassed in several areas by the Intellect Cubex machine that won our Editor's Choice award in last month's designer PC group test, but it should appeal to style-conscious users who want a machine that won't look out of place in the living room.

For the rest of us, its unquestionably attractive exterior and wealth of features may not be quite enough to justify its £1,999 price tag.

Contact: Moore Innovations 0870 011 5480
www.mooremedio.co.uk

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