Jadetec MicroPC EzGo

PCs may be one of the more useful pieces of equipment you can buy today, but most have two things in common - they're fairly large and fairly noisy.

If you want to keep your PC up to date, upgrading it over time, then size is a good thing as you'll have plenty of room for adding any extras. But for many people, a tower case is simply an ugly waste of space.

Jadetec knows all about this and thinks it has a solution - a PC that is the size of a large desk telephone.

Considering how powerful and versatile it is, the MicroPC is remarkably small. The whole thing measures about the same as a stack of five CD cases.

The external power supply is pretty chunky, so you'll have to take this into account when thinking about how much space it will take up, but it's still far smaller than any other desktop PC we've seen.

Jadetec has ensured that such svelte dimensions needn't mean weedy performance. Inside is a Pentium III processor running at a speedy 1Ghz, 128Mb of memory and a 20Gb hard disk.

Jadetec has combined standard desktop PC components with notebook parts to fit everything inside the shell. The processor is a standard desktop PC item, while the hard drive and memory are the same as those you'd find in a notebook computer.

Our review unit came with a CD-ROM drive fitted, also a notebook component; this is only significant because you don't get a motorised tray, as you would with a standard desktop CD-ROM drive. You can opt to have a DVD-ROM or even a CD-RW drive instead.

Graphics and sound come courtesy of integrated chips, which yield decent results. 3D graphics are a different story, though. The main consequence of using an integrated chip is that you won't be able to play most modern games on this machine, but for other purposes, it's an adequate compromise between size and performance.

The back panel houses a modem socket, along with connections for an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. Serial and parallel ports accompany two USB ports as the way to hook up printers, cameras and so on, just as you can with a PC many times the size.

But it doesn't stop there. On one side is a network port; if you have another PC or a notebook with this port, you'll be able to establish a high-speed connection between the two with relative ease to share files and even an internet connection. The plug for your speakers is also tucked away on there.

All that is fairly standard for PCs nowadays, but there's still more. Two different types of TV-out connections are also present, which means that you can use your television as a substitute monitor. If you've invested in the DVD-ROM drive option, you'll effectively have a highly portable DVD player that you can also use to transport your handy files and access the internet too.

Using a TV with the MicroPC constantly won't be practical, though. Programs that rely heavily on displaying text, such as Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, will be hard to read, due to the low resolution of standard televisions. Realistically, you're going to have to shell out for a proper computer monitor for use for standard PC tasks, taking up the option of a TV when you want to play a DVD or make a presentation.

Rounding off the connection marathon is an infrared port, located at the front. If you've got a mobile phone or PDA with infrared, you'll be able to get them to talk to the MicroPC. It's a rare sight indeed on desktop PCs.

Aside from the preinstalled copy of Windows Me, there is no software included with the MicroPC. Upgrading is not really what this PC is about, but theoretically you could increase the amount of memory, though this involves replacing what is already there.

Similarly, you can also replace the hard drive with a larger one, but with 20Gb of storage to deal with, it is fairly unlikely you'll need to.

Ultimately, the MicroPC EzGo is one of those products that you either need or you don't. You'll have to add the price of a monitor, keyboard and mouse to that purchase price, and you could get a faster system for less money. But if you're short on space, you really can't ask for more.

Contact
Jadetec: 0113 281 7788 www.jadetec.co.uk

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Reviewed in Computeractive, Issue 88