PC Next Day Zoostorm Iwill 2.6GHz review

Media Center is a version of Windows that enables your PC to replace your stereo, DVD player and video recorder.

With a decent monitor, a Media Center PC might just as well replace your TV too. But a computer that can do all this must cost a bomb, right? Not if PC Next Day has anything to say about it! The Iwill Media Center system will set you back just £599.

Full of features

For that price, you get a PC with a 2.6GHz Intel Celeron processor, backed up by 512MB of RAM and a whopping 160GB hard disk. The hard disk, in particular, is good news - as you'll need a lot of storage space if you want to record all of your favourite television programmes. The budget Celeron processor powers it to a 2D score of 65.83, which is a decent, but not outstanding, performance. It's good enough to let you watch TV, listen to music and so on, as well as tackling more mundane tasks, such as writing letters and surfing the Web.

On the other hand, this definitely isn't a gaming machine. It completed our Doom 3 benchmark at only 3.9 frames per second (fps). That's nowhere near fast enough for modern games to be playable.

TV HEAVEN

The most important component in a Media Center PC is the TV tuner card. It's this, working together with the software, that allows you to play, pause and record live TV. Using Media Center will only be fun if you have a high-quality TV card that works well with the operating system. At first, things didn't look promising: we couldn't find the system's Twinhan TV card on Microsoft's list of approved hardware for Media Center. According to PC Next Day, though, the card has passed the certification process and is now in the process of waiting for its certificate to come through.

In practice, we had no real problems getting the system working. Once it had been plugged into the Internet, the Zoostorm downloaded the free Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), which provides TV listings. It then went on to automatically detect all the Freeview channels, including BBC 1, 2, Three and Four, ITV 1, 2 and 3, Channel 4, E4 and so on. In total, it found 31 channels during our intensive testing. Hard work, but someone's got to do it!

Picture quality was fantastic. The Twinhan card really came up trumps. Reception was excellent, even in the Buyer Labs, where it's often difficult to get a signal. But good image quality wouldn't be much to shout about if it wasn't backed up by a decent monitor. Companies putting together bargain computers often skimp on the monitor, which is one of the most expensive parts of a PC system - so we were prepared for the worst. In fact, we were pleasantly surprised. Colours looked natural and were saturated, but not over-saturated, and image detail is resolved down to the finest points (though that's also a function of the TV card). Like many TFT computer screens, the AOC is a little bit darker than we'd like for watching DVD movies, but not so markedly that it would ruin your viewing pleasure. Recording was also hassle-free - we simply selected the show we wanted in the EPG, and scheduled Media Center to record. You can even tell it to record an entire series, so there's no need to miss an episode of Antiques Roadshow again.

ERGONOMICS AND DESIGN

As well having funky TV, photo and music functions, the Zoostorm picks up some brownie points for coming in a tiny little case. This is great if you want to tuck it away behind your TV. On the downside, this does limit your ability to add new components. The PC has no free memory slots at all. Neither does it have any empty PCI slots for installing add-in cards. Also, everything is so tightly packed inside that it's a real challenge to get to the components anyway. It's also rather odd to have a wired keyboard and mouse with a system like this. After all, if you're using it as a TV, you won't want to sit right next to it, you'll prefer to recline on your couch. The Edifier speakers weren't the best we've heard either, but they're not terrible, producing decent treble and respectable, if not booming, bass.