Iridium AVPC

PC Advisor Magazine (November '03)

After we looked at the Hi-Grade Xperian in our May 03 issue, we expected to see a flood of Multimedia PC’s hit the market. However, this hasn’t exactly been the case – in spite of all the hype about the digital lifestyle revolution that’s supposedly on its way.

You’d think that you’d have to pay through the nose for a system that isn’t just a PC but an entertainment centre as well. But PC’s that do more than just compute don’t have to be pricey, as Iridium has shown with this model. With the AVPC you can listen to the radio, CD’s and MP3 files, watch DVD’s and even normal television programs and you don’t need to boot up Windows to do this – it’s just as quick as using a standard TV, DVD player or stereo system. It’s not difficult to imagine the AVPC in the middle of your living room. The silver casing is compact and the keyboard folds up when it’s not in use. Two speakers frame the 15in LCD screen and the footprint is relatively small so if you ever did want to put it out of sight you could do so easily. But we don’t see why you’d want to, as the AVPC is pretty stylish.

Quick – quick, Slow – slow.

If you want an ultra-fast PC, then this isn’t for you. It achieved a WorldBench 4 score of 101, making it just one point faster than our control PC. However, if you don’t expect too much, the AVPC can accomplish most everyday tasks very easily. Word processing, surfing the Internet and image-editing won’t make this system break into a sweat, but it might struggle if you were too run too many applications at once. It certainly wouldn’t be much good for games – running the Quake III Annihilator demo the Iridium only managed to produce 12.1fps (frames per second). The graphics chip is built in and only has 32MB of memory, so it was never going to set the world on fire.

The optical mouse connects to the system via one of the rear-mounted USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard is pretty good, with a numeric keypad on the right, although the spacebar could have been a little bigger and the Enter button is an unusual shape, which will take getting used to. Also, as it’s attached to the main unit, it could become awkward to use for any length of time.
The warranty is only one year long but there is a good manual and software bundle, including an anti-virus package and Ability Office 2002.

Verdict

It’s the versatility of the AVPC that makes it a winner. It doesn’t do any one thing outstandingly well, but it’s an overall acceptable performer and with may tasks it doesn’t even need to boot into Windows. For under £1000, the Iridium really is a great deal.