Shuttle's newest Media Center PC abandons the cube in favour of the rack; Jørgen Sundgot's quick glance reveals a quiet performer with good looks.
At this year's CeBIT fair, one of the world's most renowned makers of small form factor PCs unveiled a first for the company: a rack form factor Media Center PC product, signaling a step away from its cube design which has grown increasingly popular with design- and space conscious Windows users. If you haven't already guessed which company I'm talking about, it's Shuttle - and more specifically, its new Media Center PC codenamed MCE-01.
Based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 platform, the MCE-01 is the very first rack form factor MCE product to see the day of light from Shuttle, which currently offers a cube-sized contender in its Media Center XPC line. Unlike the XPC line, however, the MCE-01 foregoes raw power in favour of silent performance, relying on Intel's 915M chipset, typically deployed by notebook manufacturers.
 | | Shuttle MCE-01 |
As a result, the MCE-01 relies on Intel Pentium M processors running at speeds of up to 2.13 GHz in conjunction with up to 2 GB of DDR SDRAM, yet offers three PCI Express slots for expansion. Powering graphics is an ATI Radeon X300 card, and the MCE-01 provides both TV and DVI output. Comprehensively, both analog and digital tuners are present in the MCE-01, with the former supporting both PAL and NTSC and the latter supporting DVB-T and thus HDTV broadcasts.
For storage, Shuttle's MCE-01 offers an integrated 3.5" SATA hard drive, however no information was available concerning which sizes will be offered. On the more unusual side of things, a front-loading drive bay accomodates a 2.5" external drive with USB connectivity, enabling one of the most practical ways of quickly getting media on the go I've seen to date. Lest I forget, there's also a DVD writer to be found for those favouring optical media.
 | | Shuttle MCE-01 |
It's not as if though Shuttle have skimped on other connectivity options, either. First off, we find 10/100/1000 Ethernet connectivity and integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, as well as an 8-in-1 memory card reader and, from what I could glance, at least two USB ports and an IEEE1394 jack.
Measuring in at 44.2 x 35 x 7.8 cm, the MCE-01 will come with a wireless keyboard and MCE remote control, and is expected to be available in the second half of 2005; for how much I haven't a clue, and it might also very well be sold under a different name.
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