Sweet set top PC from Lenovo!

[mkenyon2]

On the front you'll find a four-in-one media card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro), four USB 2.0 ports, plus microphone and headphone jacks.

One the back: eSATA and HDMI connections (nice!), VGA, four further USB 2.0 ports, and a variety of audio connections, including S/PDIF-out. Wi-Fi and Ethernet are standard; options include a built-in TV tuner, and various flavors of Windows Vista.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/contr...ontainer-3

[mulletback]

dunno...they don't give any real specs, and it sounds like an appliance, not a general-purpose box :confused:

[mikeh49]

Specs here:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/contr...9F01CD5103

Dual core E5200 and Intel X4500 integrated graphics.

An NMT is much more likely to be a good player, but if you need a full PC client...

[sub]

I saw the same PC yesterday on engadget. Features sound pretty nice, and has a good looking case, but ... Intel graphics. I've never yet seen an Intel graphics adapter perform well for video. It might be passable in MPEG2 land, but I wouldnt trust it here with H.264.

I'm still hoping to get myself a smaller HTPC sometime in the near-ish future, and I'm still leaning towards an ION machine. I've just got to find an entirely passive ION N330 system.

[psycik]

I saw the same PC yesterday on engadget. Features sound pretty nice, and has a good looking case, but ... Intel graphics. I've never yet seen an Intel graphics adapter perform well for video. It might be passable in MPEG2 land, but I wouldnt trust it here with H.264.

I'm still hoping to get myself a smaller HTPC sometime in the near-ish future, and I'm still leaning towards an ION machine. I've just got to find an entirely passive ION N330 system.

How much would one of those IONs cost for us mere mortals who probably couldn't get one under a "testing/development" guise?

[sub]

How much would one of those IONs cost for us mere mortals who probably couldn't get one under a "testing/development" guise?

I havnt seen one I really wanted yet, because I want a passive N330 model, but from memory many of the other ION PCs released have been in the US$300-$450 range. With the current exchange rate that doesnt seem to bad, since they're pretty capable complete machines (incl memory, HDD, CPU, motherboard with Nvidia 9400 and HDMI, some with optical drive etc), and able to handle our DVB-T H264 channels.

[mvallevand]

There's some good deals on some ION's this week here in Canada,

http://www9.ncix.com/lp2/nvidia_ion/ca/

I'm still not convinced that it is the ideal PC client on my Asrock, and with Win 7 you still need to know what you are doing to get audio configured properly.

Martin