Hasta La Gadget!

You may have gifts for every family member under your Yuletide tree, but we’re willing to bet you haven’t given much thought to your trusty media center PC. Thankfully, the open-source community once again has a ready-made present, ready to be loaded right now — the 10.0 release of XBMC, filled with goodies and toys. It’s available for Windows, Linux, Mac and even the original Apple TV, and brings a brand-new add-on manager that lets you extend functionality and improve appearance right from the UI. There’s also hardware acceleration for every platform, including special consideration for nettops sporting NVIDIA ION 2 or Broadcom Crystal HD chips, and even the underpinnings of support for Windows 7 touchscreens, ARM processors and OpenGL ES 2.0. The catalog of improvements is honestly rather staggering, so rather than read them all here, you can follow our source links to the full changelog and download pages, while we try to spread the Christmahanukwanzaakah cheer.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

XBMC 10.0 ‘Dharma’ now available to download with improvements galore, add-on manager and Apple TV support originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 13:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Troy, who clearly longs to relive the glory days of WebTV. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I’ve got a curious desire for a good-to-great web browsing experience on my television. I know there are countless connected HDTVs out there, a few new Google TV options and the idea of using an HTPC. I’m not afraid of putting the legwork into hooking up a full-blown computer, but I’m trying to keep everything under $400 or $500, so that eliminates the high-end rigs with Blu-ray, CableCARD, and the like. I also am leaning towards the HTPC so I can have a standard user agent for viewing Hulu content, etc. Anyone in the same boat with any opinions?”

With Google TV just hitting the marketplace, you’ve got more options than ever before. Hard to say just yet if that’s a boon or not, but surely a few readers have a couple pennies each to share on the matter. Toss out yours in comments below.

Ask Engadget: best method for getting the internet on your HDTV? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out, Shuttle — CyberPower’s getting all up in your territory with its new LAN Party EVO series. Introduced today, this foursome of minuscule monsters relies on mITX and mATX motherboards and plenty of high-end internals to deliver solid gaming performance in a desktop that’s at least somewhat portable. The Party EVO Mini is wrapped in a Silverstone SG-07B enclosure, while the Xtreme, Commander, and Ultra tout In-Win’s Dragonslayer. Aside from integrating its Max Airflow Package to keep things a couple of notches below “Molten Lava,” the whole crew is equipped with a 64-bit copy of Windows 7, a three-year warranty and free lifetime phone support. As for specs, the Mini ($1,079) gets a Core i7-870 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU and a 1TB HDD, while the Xtreme ($799) steps down (oddly enough) to a Core i5-760 and an HD 5670 on the graphics front. The Commander ($999) includes a Core i7-950, 6GB of DDR3 RAM and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTS 450 (1GB), and finally, the Ultra ($759) branches out with an AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, ATI’s Radeon HD 5670 GPU (1GB) and a full terabyte of hard drive space. So, which is going to be, buster?

Continue reading CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family

CyberPower gets diminutive with LAN Party EVO SFF desktop family originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not so keen on the idea of buying something with an ASRock logo on the front? It’s about time to shake your mainstream expectations, vaquero. AnandTech just got their paws around one of the company’s highest-end SFF HTPCs, and while we knew from glancing it at Computex that it was primed to perform, the real-world results have shown that it actually is capable of impressing. In fact, these guys called the Vision 3D HTPC “the best SFF HTPC [they had] ever reviewed, hands down,” noting that the 2.4GHz Core i3-370M and GeForce GT425M GPU enabled a “quantum leap” in gaming performance for a system of this caliber. Of course, it checks in at just under a grand, but the inclusion of Blu-ray and an HDMI 1.4a port help to “justify the premium pricing.” Critics also found the machine to be an easy overclocker, appreciated the trio of USB 3.0 ports and found the “perfect wake-up from sleep” to be a welcome extra in a world of quiescent PCs. No need to take our word for it — hit that source link to see just how heavily the pros outweigh the cons.

ASRock Vision 3D HTPC reviewed: it’s the best, guys originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Dell on the home entertainment front, but don’t you worry, the guys in Round Rock have been right on top of it. First up is the brand new Zino HD home theater PC, which like we’d heard is being updated with an AMD quad-core Phenom II processor that’s more than capable of pumping out full HD to your HDTV. In typical Dell spirit there’s tons of configuration options, including one for 1GB of ATI discrete graphics, a Blu-ray drive, and up to a terabyte of storage. For $299, we’re a bit giddy about this little one considering it packs more power than any of those Ion nettops and it comes with a wireless keyboard and IR remote control.

If a large touchscreen all-in-one is more your thing, the Inspiron One can be configured with similar parts — an AMD Athlon II X4 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450, Blu-ray, and up to 1TB are all on the list. To us, the real appeal of this one is its 1920×1080 resolution, 23-inch display, which produced some pretty stunning HD playback when we saw it in action last month. Dell’s put a lot of energy into its new Stage touch interface, which consists of different tiled applications. It’s actually more than eye candy as we’re betting those Netflix and CinemaNow tiles will see plenty of tapping. The One starts at $799 and will be available this coming weekend — but before you yank out the wallet, we’d suggest flipping through the galleries below and hitting the break for a read of the press release.

Continue reading Dell whips out 23-inch Inspiron One all-in-one and Zino HD

Dell whips out 23-inch Inspiron One all-in-one and Zino HD originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 01:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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