HardwareCentral - HP Media Center M370N Photosmart PC Review

HP Media Center M370N Photosmart PC Review

A High-Performance Couch Potato

November 21, 2003
By Eric Grevstad

A High-Performance Couch Potato

We mentioned that the Radeon 9200 card won't set any gaming records, but the M370N performed fairly well in our benchmarks -- everything from 108 frames per second in Quake III Arena's High Quality 1,024 by 768 mode to three out of four game simulations en route to a score of 1,215 in FutureMark's 3DMark03 and 76 frames per second in an Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby.

The Radeon even powered the HP through the free version of AquaMark3, although its 12.4 fps was nothing to write home about (GFX 1,350; CPU 7,883; overall score 12,438). And it staggered to a brave but bad 5.2 fps in the Codecreatures benchmark with 4X antialiasing.

Video aside, the Photosmart PC is as fast as you'd expect a Pentium 4/2.8C machine to be, comfortably outrunning run-of-the-mill retail desktops with a BAPco SysMark 2002 rating of 251 (Internet Content Creation 362, Office Productivity 174). It cruised through Futuremark's PCMark 2002 with scores of 6,748 (CPU), 6,747 (memory), and 1,080 (hard disk).

And while it may not be a 5.1 surround-sound system, the Altec Lansing 221 setup of satellites plus jumbo subwoofer delivered far more enjoyable music and bass than the average consumer desktop's cheap, disposable speakers. (Two of the latter, redundantly enough, come with the F1703 monitor.)

Boo for Hollywood

Now, about that problem with watching your saved TV shows: If you'll forgive our repeating a factoid from an October column, Jupiter Research notes that the percentage of PC users who'd be interested in recording TV on their PCs jumps 50 percent when given the choice of watching recorded shows on their TV sets instead of being chained to their PCs.

Unfortunately, Microsoft toes the TV and movie studios' copy-protection line, so Windows XP Media Center Edition records video not in vanilla MPEG-2 but a proprietary format called DVR-MS -- incompatible with its own Windows Movie Maker, let alone a burn-your-own disc for your living-room DVD player. (Microsoft says Sonic's $80 MyDVD Plus and ArcSoft's $90 QuickDVD can burn Media Center recordings to standard DVDs, but we haven't tried them.)

Indeed, while you can use Windows Media Player 9 as an alternative to the Media Center software to watch generic recorded video on the Media Center PC, recordings of video protected by a broadcaster's copy-protection flag can be viewed only on the PC only with Media Center. In other words, advantage: ATI All-in-Wonder card. (The latter also outperforms the meant-for-full-screen Media Center when it comes to shrinking TV to a window alongside regular applications on your desktop, even offering the option of translucent or Windows-wallpaper video.)

That gripe aside, Media Center Edition 2004 is both fun and impressive. It's surprisingly intuitive to use the remote control, with its compass-navigation buttons surrounding a large OK button, to navigate through screens for everything from watching slide shows of your digital-camera images to swiftly setting up Media Center for your local cable-TV feed and display type (CRT, LCD, or rear or front projection) and surfing channels of live TV -- it takes a few seconds to start each time, as the hard disk starts spooling for instant replay, but picture quality is good, as long as you either restrict TV to a window or push your chair back beyond Word and Excel distance so full-screen video doesn't look pixilated.

If you're lucky enough to have a broadband Internet connection, the system fetches your local listings for a terrific on-screen program guide, which not only provides ample information about individual shows but makes it a snap to mark episodes or series for TiVo-style recording. Playback, at least of shows we saved at the highest of four quality settings (approximately 3GB of hard-disk space per hour), looked great.

Overall, this second edition of Windows XP Media Center strikes us as a big step forward in computing and home-entertainment synchronicity -- though we're already having third-time's-a-charm thoughts about a version optimized for using 802.11g wireless to play music and video on other devices in the home, instead of sucking up to the studio suits' obsession with crippling content and removing users' rights.

And the HP 370N strikes us as a big step forward in mass-market PCs -- handsomely outfitted and finished, fast enough for anyone except a 3D-game maniac, and positively packed with nice little conveniences and bonuses. If this is coddling, count us in.

Pros:

A fast, handsome desktop, loaded with handy extras and applications for photo and video buffs
Win XP Media Center Edition 2004 is way cool

Cons:

Don't like watching TV on your PC monitor? Tough, unless you connect your TV to the PC
Gets pricey if you go the full, all-the-options, HP-dock-for-HP-digital-camera route