3. Ports And Peripherals: A Quick Overview

The Shuttle box is the only mini HTPC to omit the following elements (thereby making them necessary purchases for those who wish to use the XPC 100 as a Media Center PC):

a wireless keyboard an MCE remote and IR transceiver even an SDTV tuner

All the other vendors include some, if not all of these items. WinBook makes the keyboard optional, but their optional keyboard is a Microsoft MCE Remote Keyboard, which does double duty as both keyboard and remote. The keyboard also comes with Microsoft's MCE Remote and its requisite IR receiver, which is also needed for the MCE Remote Keyboard to work.

PC Alchemy furnishes all of these elements as part of its basic product bundle for the M1B, along with an incredibly compact powered 4-port USB hub and the smallest USB IR receiver we've ever seen. The WinBook Jiv offers a built-in receiver that supports both IR and Bluetooth connectivity. The PC Alchemy M2B supports only a built-in IR receiver. Both the WinBook and PC Alchemy M2B units, which are built around the same case, are the only units in this group to offer built-in wireless 802.11a/b/g networking capabilities as standard features.

Most of the ports and connectors are on the back, mostly to make room for a slot loading CD/DVD player on the front. That said, only the PC Alchemy M1B lacks ports on the front entirely. The Shuttle XPC 100 offers a single USB port on its front, while the WinBook Jiv and the PC Alchemy M2B both sport a Firewire and a USB port on their more-or-less identical front panels. None of these units has ports on their sides, a departure from notebook design protocols that emphasizes their always-tethered operation and potential position on a desktop , equipment shelf, or entertainment center where access from front and back may be taken for granted, but where side access is a chancy proposition at best.

All of these units run fairly coolly and remarkably quietly. The WinBook Jiv and PC Alchemy M2B units, which share the same case, showed more of a tendency toward higher ambient temperatures than either of the other two units we reviewed, but excessive heat output was not a problem for any of these mini PCs. None should strain the ventilation in an entertainment center, nor will any of them add appreciably to the heat load in an office environment. If they replace a more conventional PC, in fact, any of these machines should lower the heat load significantly.

The CD/DVD and disk drives in all units ran fairly quietly. As is typical for slot loading, slimline CD/DVD drives, they produce less noise than most tray loading drives. None of them produced objectionable noise when we watched a DVD on our home entertainment system. The bigger, more powerful disk drive in the Shuttle XPC 100 (a 3.5", 7200 RPM 250 GB SATA drive) was a little bit noisier than the smaller notebook drives used in the other units. Still none of the drives contributed enough noise to interfere with our TV programs or DVD movies, even at volume levels somewhat below normal, or what at least one of us calls "watching while the baby is sleeping" volume.