Specifications

• HP Blackbird 002
• HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC
• Dell XPS 720 H2C
HP Pavilion a6130n
$750 direct
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The a6130n has expandable disk
storage through the innovative
HP Pocket Media Bay drive. It has
integrated graphics, so it lacks
3D chops, but it’s powerful enough to
handle all your digital life.
HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC
$1,800 direct
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The TouchSmart succeeds where
previous all-in-one PCs have tried
and failed. It has a touch-screen
interface that works. It could use
a speed bump and an HD DVD drive, but
this all-in-one is a perfect TV/DVR/family
communications center/kitchen PC.
Velocity Micro CineMagix
Grand Theater
$3,699 direct
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The Grand Theater does something that
even a $5K+ gaming rig can’t: It replaces
your TiVo, recording HDTV over cable,
even the premium channels. It does all
this while looking like a piece of stereo
equipment, unlike the gaming PCs.
Velocity Micro Vector GX
Campus Edition 2007
$999 direct
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It may have “Campus Edition” in its
name, but this is a system for the
budding director in your family. Its
overclocked processor gives it the
legs it needs to keep up with the latest
Internet trends, including helping you
express your creativity on the Web.
Not long ago, a Media Center was
any system running Windows Media
Center Edition. When Microsoft built
MCE into the Vista Premium and Ulti-
mate versions, the stakes got higher.
Digital Cable Tuner and copious stor-
age rule the day now.—JSD
Media Centers
Dell XPS 720 H2C
$7,756 direct; $8,955 w/27-inch widescreen
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Dell’s latest gaming PC is still in the old
XPS 700 case, but now it has a new, optional
window to show off the thermoelectric
cooler. The exterior design is still love-it-
or-hate-it, but the internals—including a
1TB hard drive and 4GB of memory—are
sound. This is the performance gaming
system for those who can handle Dell’s
quirky take on upgrades: Components
such as the power supply, motherboard,
and sound card are often Dell-specifi c.
Specs: 3-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850
(overclocked to 3.67 GHz); 4GB, 1,066-MHz
DDR2 SDRAM; two 160GB 10,000-rpm SATA
hard drives ( RAID 0); one 1TB 7,200-rpm hard
drive, two 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
graphics cards (SLI); Windows Vista Ultimate.
NOVEMBER 6, 2007 PC MAGAZINE 71