Space Age Chassis with Penguin Power inside!
Written: Dec 13 '99
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Pros: excellant phone service, great hardware, beautiful chassis
Cons: lack of software customization options
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| seraphim's Full Review: Pogo Altura |
For those of you who are aesthetically driven this is the chassis for you at the very least, and with functionality in mind its guts are, well, gutsy. The base unit is slightly below industry-standard in terms of RAM and hard drive size (64MB and 13GB respectively). The processor is an Athlon (base unit is Athlon 500) and is quite zippy. This machine is intended for use as a server and does so quite well. The machine comes with Linux installed (Red Hat 6.1).
Pogo offers ultimate customization ability through their online store and prompt service/sales department (when I called I was answered in 2 rings by a human being, not the phone trees I've come to expect and hate). I found the computer I wanted to buy and had it configured and ordered within 20 minutes at a reasonable rate. Here's what I purchased and what I recommend for anyone who is searching for the ultimate Linux box of doom.
Pogo Altura:
K7 700MHz Processor
10/100 Macsense 32-bit FE551 Ethernet Adapter
34GB Primary Hard Drive (UDMA/66)
18GB Secondary Hard Drive (UDMA/66)
768MB PC100 SDRAM (In one DIMM)
40X CD-ROM
Creative Labs Esoniq 128 PCI Sound Card
Diamond Viper 770 TNT2 32MB AGP
Viewsonic 21" G810 .25DP Monitor
60W Speakers w/Subwoofer
Logitech Cordless Mouse
Windows 98 Dual Boot
Final Price: $4988
Not a bad deal for the system at all, and you are quite arguably getting the best box on the market, one all your little hax0r friends will drool over. There are, however, a few problems with Pogo that you should know before you run to www.buypogo.com and pick yourself up one of these boxes. Primarily there are certain options that are not available. If you want a different mouse for example, you are out of luck. I personally dislike cordless mice, and greatly prefer the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer - this was not an option, I will buy an Explorer and install it myself. The other component that has no options is the sound card. You must purchase a Creative Labs Ensoniq 128, again my preference for a box that is this powerful would be a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 256. Again it's something that I will buy separately and install on my own time. My final complaint regarding purchasing options is that Pogo lacks an at-purchase option for an NT dual-boot. I feel that it would be quite helpful if they were to offer this.
I would also like to mention that since I am not a great fan of Red Hat Linux I will be installing SuSE as soon as my box arrives since Pogo installs only Red Hat. The hardware alone is why I decided to take my money to Pogo, and they excel at this service. If they one day decide to provide greater flexibility with their software pre-configuration I would be even happier with their service.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 4988
Operating System: Linux
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 600
RAM: More than 128
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): Over 12
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Epinions.com ID:
seraphim
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Location: Upstate New York
Reviews written: 106
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