My last PC for home/office use was an ATX tower which I spec'ed myself and was built by a small, non-global company.
I had it for almost 5 years (an aeon in computing lifespans!) and despite being fairly pricey with all the then state-of-the-art features and components, it was a great workhorse - really fast and did everything I wanted it to do. However, having no less than 5 internal fans, it was pretty noisey and not the best space-saving piece of kit ... but then again, it WAS me in the first place who'd made sure it had enough spare drive bays for expansion.
After reviewing my needs for a more tidy and quieter approach, with the same relative speed and number/graphical-crunching power of my big tower, I was steadily attracted to the new kids on the block: Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs.
There are a number of well-known manufacturers that now build this sort of PC, but Shuttle were one of the pioneers and have possibily been doing it the longest, deservedly winning many awards for their sleek designs and well-integrated technical components. For me, Shuttle was the brand to go with at the outset.
::: Size vs Cooling ::: Measuring a mere 210mm x 220mm x 340mm (height x width x length), it is hard to imagine how so much computing grunt can be squeezed into such a small space.
Most PCs you see advertised by the 'big' name players (Dell, HP, Packard, etc.) are large boxes with ever more fanciful facias to tempt the buyer. The reason they are so large is mainly due to their cooling requirements: faster PCs get hotter quicker, so the more air you can circulate in the 'box' bit of the PC, generally the cooler it will run.
This particular Shuttle manages to keep cool inside without needing large pockets of air by dividing heat dissipation into 3 areas: a right-to-left air draft to cool the CPU, 2 small rear fans to push out hot air generated by the hard disk and DVD drive, and a larger rear fan to draw out heat from the video card and motherboard chipset.
Ok, so there are still 5 fans in this mini PC but 3 of them are large ones that rotate more slowly, minimising overall noise.
::: Small Form Factor vs Expandability ::: With the actual case being so small, there is very little scope for expanding (or 'upgrading', if you prefer the term) the components inside. For example, how would you fit in one of those enormous AGP graphics cards? The answer: you don't -- the motherboard is designed to take the new PCI Express-sized graphics cards, and the P8100G comes pre-fitted with the useful ATI X600Pro (which has 256MB on-board RAM).
Likewise, on the storage media front, you get a, dual-layer DVD rewriter and a 250GB (7200 rpm) SATA hard disk: more than enough removeable and permanent space for most power users, although there are bigger hard drives available now, so upgrading to, say, a 400GB hard disk would be a straight swap-out.
On the CPU and memory front, you are kitted out with a 3.4GHz Hyper-Threading Pentium 4 and a whopping 1GB of RAM. That's plenty of future-proofing speed for my needs!
The motherboard also sports (among other things) a built-in 8-channel audio controller (with 6 channels for all that surround sound and 2 for digital recording/playback), GigaBit LAN port for networking (that's 1000MBits/s, not the slower, more usual 10 or 100MBits/s), 4 USB 2.0 ports, and 2 firewire ports. Then to top it all, the unit is pre-fitted with a 6-in-1 card reader for transferring those digital photos/movies straight from the card, and you get 2 years on-site warranty -- amazing considering most electronics companies are loath to give you even a 1 year Return-to-Base type!
My point is that this particular XPC (and most other mini-cube PCs) comes with so many useful and useable features as standard that there is virtually no need to have additional space for expanding. In the past, and even with some of the modern mainstream PCs, you'd normally have to go out and buy an "add-on this" and an "add-on that" to make it a more complete system.
In fact, despite all the above mentioned gadgets, there is still a spare PCI slot to hand should you need it. Other potential upgrades, like making it wireless, can be achieved by either purchasing a Shuttle-specific wireless module (which doesn't use the spare PCI slot) or nowadays you can get USB wireless receivers.
::: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud ::: Thus far, the P8100G fulfills all the desires that I, and perhaps most users, would have for a PC: a compact, stylish power house that plays hard and delivers a kudos factor that few machines can rival.
My main gripe was with the quality control of the first machine I had delivered. The hard disk had not been mounted properly in the internal caging and it must have taken a few good knocks during transport because the machine kept crashing and I discovered loads of bad sectors. Thankfully, within a few days a new one arrived which worked perfectly.
The second quality control gripe was a less important one: the recovery CD that came with the unit was for the Home edition of Windows XP -- my machine came pre-installed with XP Pro. This took a bit longer to resolve but it came eventually.
And lastly, one of the two small rear fans developed a rattle after only about 3 months. Again, the Shuttle support was extremely good and I had a technician come out to change them within a week and a half.
::: Summary ::: Overall, I am really pleased with the Shuttle XPC. It sits unobtrusively and quietly, in its understated polished black elegance, purring away as the fans regulate the internal temperature.
It is agreeably a bit of a monetary splash out (almost double the price of many mail-order PCs you see in the papers) and you don't get a free keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, scanner, or digital camera. But for those parts it lacks, there is no substitute for the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction you receive when it just does the job, rapidly and without fuss, and you KNOW it will do the job.
A pricey mini-cube PC is not for everyone. I would say they are marketed toward the computing enthusiast and even go so far as to say that it is overkill for the Joe Bloggs of us. But if you want a reliable machine that would not look out of place where the hi-fi goes to play your favourite tunes through surround sound, play those DVDs or downloaded movies by plugging it into the TV, or wreak carnage and havoc by blasting the aliens to bits, the XPC will certainly not disappoint.
More details
Reliability
Excellent
Memory / capacity
Excellent
Range of Extra Features
Good
Instruction manual
Satisfactory
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