Elonex Exentia

Finally, a Windows Media Center PC that's designed the way it should be.

Price: £1799

Manufacturer: Elonex

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Verdict

Pros:
Packed full of features; great design.

Cons:
Expensive; difficult to use with an existing TV.

Overall:
Intelligently designed with loads of features. The price will be an issue for many, though.

David Ludlow, Computeractive 09 Aug 2004

When Microsoft released Windows XP Media Center Edition, its idea was to evolve the PC into more than just a fixture of a back room. To be fair, the concept of a PC that records TV, plays back music and displays pictures is a compelling one. Unfortunately, early Media Center offerings were nothing special and certainly not something you'd proudly display in the living room.

It's gratifying to see, then, that Elonex has clearly put a lot of thought into its Exentia. An all-in-one device, the Exentia squeezes a PC into an area not much bigger than its 17in widescreen display. This might not make it a good choice for a living room, where a larger TV probably exists, but it's perfect for the bedroom or a small study, for example.

Perhaps the best thing about the Exentia is the ease with which it can be set up. All we had to do was plug in a TV aerial, a power cable and turn it on. It has a wireless keyboard and mouse receiver built into the case, which means fewer cables, and it all works straight out of the box.

You'll need an internet connection to download the online TV guide listings, but there's a lot of choice of how you can go about this. Aside from the modem and network connection, there's also Wi-Fi.

Finally, if you want to record TV from a set-top box, such as Sky or Freeview, there's all the cabling you need and an infrared transmitter. This works by sending signals to your box to change channels, so in theory you need never miss a show again. However, we found it quite difficult to get working, which is more of a problem relating to the software than to Elonex itself.

You might think that squeezing all of these functions into such a small space means that you get a cut-down PC. Fortunately, that's not the case. Inside there's a powerful 2.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 512Mb of memory and an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card. The latter option is good enough for the occasional bout of 3D gaming, although it will struggle with some of the newer, more demanding titles.

There's a 120Gb hard disk, which is enough to record around 100 hours' worth of TV at basic quality. In addition, there's a recordable DVD drive (that supports all DVD formats apart from DVD-RAM), which can be used with the Sonic PrimeTime software to archive recordings to disc.

Flip open a panel on the left of the screen and there's an 8-in-1 memory card reader, which Media Center can access to display pictures, video or music. Built-in speakers don't usually impress us but Elonex has coupled them with a subwoofer, which sounds superb. Finally, there's a copy of Microsoft Works 7 so you can get down to some proper work.

It would appear as though Elonex has covered every base. However, the Exentia doesn't come cheap. At £1,799 it's a lot of money to spend on a PC, especially when the same cash would buy you a higher-specification PC without Media Center.

That said, the Exentia is one of the best Media Center PCs we've seen. Considering how simple it is to connect and the obvious attention to detail, it's a good buy if you don't have much room and want a TV, PVR (personal video recorder) and PC all in one.

Contact: Elonex 020 8452 2444
www.elonex.co.uk

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