Gateway Media Center PC

Advantages: very powerful entertainment PC with great media experience
Disadvantages: doesnt include with tv card

...The 'Compaq Presario Media Center SR2019UK' PC is a great buy. It is powerful enough to display all the media you could want and with XP media centre, you can access your music, video, radio and tv while laying back. The 7.1 surround sound has great quality and the software offers many options to tweak your sound. The DVD Writer drive allows you to burn your media quikly from either the media centre user interface, or from various other included softwares. If you use other devices that use memory cards, theres no need to use cables, just slot the cards into the memory card readeer in the front panel. The only critisism is that the power of 2,2 Ghz is by far not the most powerful available today, and sometimes when using many programmes the pc can be slightly slugish but aslong as programmes aren't left running while not in use the pc... Read review

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Advantages: High Spec and a Few Hidden Extras
Disadvantages: Doesn't Really Look Like a Media Centre

...hard drive to be filled up with songs, movies, pictures etc. then pulled straight out and plugged into any other pc with the supplied cables. So really it's an internal, external hard drive! Rating: 9/10 Comment: Impressive spec that will run anything you throw at it ~*~Software~*~ As this is a Media Centre it is supplied with Windows Media Centre 2005, which, contrary to many people, is actually really good. It is simple to navigate through the menu and once you have set it up, which actually isn't the easiest thing, you have a gateway to all your music, picture, videos, live TV and Radio. With the ability to record, pause and rewind live TV (yes this really does work!) watching your favourite program will never be the same, interrupting phone calls will never be an issue again! Also included is Microsoft Works Suite... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent speed and performance
Disadvantages: Tower unit look not very impressive

...Our 7-year-old Compaq Presario was getting very slow under the burden of new program additions and incessant daily usage. It was crashing a few times every week, signalling that it was time to let go! I was looking to buy a new computer with reasonable memory and speed, which would be able to withstand gaming of our son, music download of our daughter and long internet use of my husband, and at the same time not break the bank. I made a list of specifications which I would like and found that with all those specs a computer and monitor would touch £1000 mark! Its very strange to me as I always hear in media that computers are getting cheaper, but when you actually go for buying them, they do not seem to be so! I searched several internet sites, visited larger computer stores and found one which had all the specifications I wanted... Read review

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