Small Blessing
Written: Aug 27 '08 (Updated Aug 27 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well-built, attractive, small-footprint machine.
Cons: Noisy fan, but not dealbreaker noisy.
The Bottom Line: Well-built, attractive, small-footprint machine. Reliable, too.
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| tlknapp's Full Review: Shuttle XPC SK41G Barebone |
By the time this system reached me as a hand-me-down, it was no longer barebone: It was equipped with a 1.4GHz AMD processor, 256Mb RAM, 20Gb hard drive, and DVD R/W. It had a (functional) installation of Windows XP, and a (broken) installation of Suse Linux, on separate 10Gb disk partitions.
First good impression: Nice, small footprint -- about the size of a toaster! My last few machines were large towers that hogged a lot of space and were always in the way. It's also just pleasant to look at. The case is brushed aluminum. Very nice.
Second good impression: I've been using the computer for about 8 months now, and have yet to receive "The Blue Screen Of Death" in Windows. Not once. Not ever. I was used to seeing it on a daily basis. The Windows installation does have a problem with the sound card, but since it works fine in Linux and since I haven't had any crashes, it follows that I haven't had any hardware-related crashes. To me, that means that the system was well assembled, using quality components, right down to the barebone level.
Third good impression: Despite the machine's small footprint, the ports aren't crowded or hard to reach. Extra USB ports on the front mean I don't have to crawl behind my desk to connect devices I won't be leaving connected (bear with me -- being a bit of a troglodyte, I only took up pen drives, MP3 players, etc. recently, so I had never pondered the virtues of front USB ports before).
Flaws? Well, the fan tends toward the noisy side. That's the only complaint I have about the machine, and it's not really a complaint (my last tower sounded like a jet taxiing for takeoff).
Like I said, this machine was a hand-me-down ... but the next time I'm looking to buy a machine, I'll be looking at Shuttle first.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tlknapp
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Member: Thomas Knapp
Location: Saint Louis, MO USA
Reviews written: 82
Trusted by: 11 members
About Me:
Libertarian activist, writer, publisher of Rational Review and Kn@ppster.
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