The BRIO is a neat little package that gives you all you need as a replacement PC.
My PC was getting a bit long in the tooth. Nearly four years down the line and it was still running okay (an Evesham K6-200) but I was beginning to find that I could not run certain software - particularly games - and big applications (e.g. Corel Draw) were taking an age to run. So I wanted a new PC. But I already had a perfectly good 17" monitor, speakers, software etc etc. The solution was to buy a system box on its own and combine it with my existing parts - this is where the BRIO comes in.
Most PC suppliers want to sell you a whole system with monitor, speakers bundled software etc etc. Sometimes even with a printer and scanner thrown in. But if, like me, you have already got some good quality peripherals, then you will end up throwing/giving some of it away as surplus to requirements - and it is all built into the cost so you are wasting money.For just over £700 I bought a BRIO BA410 from Jungle (plus £10 for next day delivery). This is with:
3 year warranty – First year next business day onsite
There are plenty of variants that can be selected e.g. with or without Word, Celeron or PIII processors, with or without modem or LAN card etc etc.I think the price is a bargain. For this kind of specification, I simply could not find a better priced PC. The nearest rival would be either some of the Fujitsu lines or the Maxdata - but these all have some drawbacks in spec/price/availability compared to the HP.
Jungle delivered as promised (well done to them). Set up was entirely straightforward - it all plugged in and was going first time. All the software was preloaded, and within a few minutes I had blazing performance at my fingertips to pen my next Ciao op.
First impressions are good. The machine is smaller than I expected - measuring 14.5 inches / 37 cm high - its a micro tower. It appears very solidly made. The case comes apart very simply by means of finger screws - a neat idea. The real shock inside is that there is no CPU fan. Shock horror. I will say that again - no CPU fan. This came as a real shock to me - there is a large silver heat sink in its place. This means that the PC is surprisingly quiet when running - in fact virtually silent apart from some hard disk noise occasionally. I thought that my old PC was quiet compared to many others that I have seen, but the BRIO was really impressive here - very much a plus mark from me. The rest of the insides are unremarkable - neat, but with little room for expansion - see later.
When researching the purchase I looked at various similar system boxes (Toshiba, Fujitsu, older BRIOs etc) and I found that many were based on Intel's 810 chipset. This has an onboard VGA/graphics adapter but NO AGP slot to allow sensible graphics updates (you can sometimes use a PCI graphics card but these are relatively thin on the ground and offer poorer performance). Upgradeable graphics with an AGP slot was a must for me and helped convince me to buy the BRIO BA410. The motherboard chipset is a VIA with onboard S3 ProSavage video - see later for my views on this.
Keyboard and scroll mouse are a good quality. You do not really notice how old and worn your trusty old keyboard has become until you try out a new one.
A very nice touch is the HP system recovery CD. This allows you to restore the whole system to its original "out of the box" state in something like 30 minutes (remember to back up your data first) which will be a godsend for those of us in a habit of overloading their systems to the point that a fresh install is required.
The initial set up also has an HP diagnostic partition which is accessible on boot up. Again a nice touch, but of more limited use to those of us who think that they know better!
The other thing that I liked (although have not yet tried out) is that the system is "certified" to work with Linux. Now that may not really mean too much as most systems probably will work with it, but as I am hoping to get round to experimenting with the Penguin O/S I thought it an added plus.
The BRIO is not all things to all people however, and it does have some flaws. My main beef is with the onboard VGA system. This uses shared system RAM - configurable up to Mb. Performance in "business" type applications (Office etc) is absolutely fine, but 3D performance is very poor - in fact not really and better than the old PCI Matrox Mystique 220 in my old machine. I had anticipated this, but I will certainly need to use that AGP upgrade slot sooner than I would have liked.
There is no reset button - instead you press and hold the power button (a smart little blue triangle on the front) . Not a feature that long time Windows users like me can do without! You soon get used to this, but I still prefer the old ways.
The upgrade potential is a little limited. With a PCI LAN card (connected to my home network and the internet - see my 3Com LAN modem op) and a PCI modem card, that leaves only the AGP and one PCI slots free. There are 2 x 5.25 slots - one is taken by the supplied CD drive leaving one for upgrades. All this is clear to the purchaser in the published specification so is fairly acceptable although a little limiting. What I had not expected is that there are no free 3.5-inch bays - this means that you cannot add a second hard drive. Now that could be a problem for the more advanced users. I am investigating putting it in a caddy in the 5.25 drive bay, but it a bit irritating that this should be necessary - and it means no space for my CDR drive.
The CD drive supplied does not match the rest of the case in colour - it is a darker grey. This does not match the marketing photos of the BRIO and might upset some. Others might think that it acts as a key colour and looks ok. As an aside, I think that the colour mismatch would entitle a buyer to a refund under the s.13 Sale of Good Act 1979 (products not matching description) - but that’s another matter.
My next beef is more minor - the Word set-up is a little odd in that it does not have the spell check function installed. You have to install this from the supplied Word 2000 CD. Not too much of a hardship but surely unnecessary.
More minor still the licence terms are a little hard to understand and the various licences in printed and online form seem to conflict with each other. Some say that you can use that copy on Windows only on an HP PC, others are not so restrictive. If correct then this would restrict future use of the OS on a later upgrade machine - I prefer to accept the less restrictive on line version. I suspect I am probably one of a group of less than 1% of users who read these things (or care) but that’s just the way I am. It probably won't matter a jot to you. Still, if these are the worst things that I can find to complain about, then perhaps its not bad at all.
My other complaint is not really about the BRIO but about all things PC. Although I only bought this two weeks ago I have already seen a better spec BRIO on sale for the same money. ARGGGH!
On balance, I am very happy (so far) with the machine. It works well, runs solidly and fast, and HP has not forced me to buy lots of peripherals etc that I don't want or need. You can't beat it for the money - fully recommended.
More details
Reliability
Excellent
Memory / capacity
Excellent
Range of Extra Features
Satisfactory
Instruction manual
Satisfactory
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