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On Looking For A Media PC: The Dell Studio Hybrid
Posted on February 22nd, 2009 10 comments
I have mentioned in my ENTR200 classes a couple of times that I am exploring hooking some sort of PC to a new HDMI-equipped LCD TV to view www.sling.com and hulu.com at my leisure. The minimum requirement for the PC is pretty basic: a minimum of 1920 X 1080 and enough grunt to stream same, wireless N (not a deal breaker), very small form factor, and ability to be controlled remotely. It looks like the Dell Studio Hybrid (picture @ left), a novel media computer based on notebook components, might fit the bill. It has HDMI/DVI output, consumes like 65 watts max, can be configured with wireless N and comes with a wireless keyboard/mouse, has a dual-core Intel processor, up to 4 gigs of memory with Vista Home Premium, etc. So far so good. However, the “boards” don’t speak kindly about its performance. I went to Best Buy yesterday and had a conversation with an ex-Geek squader who didn’t speak very highly of the Studio Hybird, stating that bunches were coming back with component problems. Having said that, it looks like for about $399-$489 or so a refurb unit may be had from Dell outlet. Therein lies the challenge. In the same price range, a “Studio Slim” quadcore with 4 gigs of memory and a massively bigger hard drive may be purchased. My question for readers is, do any of you have hands-on experience with either of these Dell models? A Youtube intro is below. Hank

10 responses to “On Looking For A Media PC: The Dell Studio Hybrid”
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Katie Robinson February 22nd, 2009 at 11:35
I don’t know really what to think about this. It looks neat, but as it was said that its not the best preformance. Thats what I was told when I looked into it also, I don’t really know alot about the electronics. But from what I was told it wasn’t the best idea to get into.
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Spencer McKee February 22nd, 2009 at 15:14
I think it’s a neat idea but like Katie said, they need to improve performance before they can expect a lot of buyers.
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Sergio Flores February 22nd, 2009 at 15:28
Well, I havent really touched one of those PC’s yet. If what I’ve read in PC Magazine is true then the Studio Hybrid is good enough for word processing and e-mails….thats about it. It looks ‘nice’ but I must say that I think the software is too big and powerful for such a ’small’ hardware package.
APPLE RULES!!
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Breanna Ware February 22nd, 2009 at 15:43
I have never had any experience with either of the Dell devices, however, if you find a way to view hulu.com, ect. the way your trying to, please let put it on your blog. I’d love to read about it.
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Jim Smith February 22nd, 2009 at 18:17
I would never buy a Dell… In reality I would probably never buy a pre-built PC… If I were you I would just assemble my own (if you can turn a screw driver you can make your own PC, the hard part is deciding what YOU want in it and what you want it to do). You can make it as powerful as you want, with all the options that you want and probably for less than what dell will charge you. You could even get a PVR and make it a DVR as well… Windows Media Center is actually very nice (and thats A LOT coming from me) and has PVR/DVR capabilities built in. Although I hear comcast and others are trying to prevent PVRs from working because they want you to pay for their DVR…
I would say AppleTV but it does not do 1080p well. You could wait for the new Mac Minis to come out, but probably not exactly what you want (it can be hacked like the AppleTV to do pretty much whatever you want). Run Boxee on it (which can do hulu again via a hack, but its fairly sketchy because its so new…), can even buy external PVRs and do the whole “DVR” thing too, however, Windows Media Center is a cleaner way to do it (wow, I really can’t believe I just said that…).
Jim
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Lauren Withers February 22nd, 2009 at 18:49
I do not know very much about this type of stuff so I would not be able to help you out. It is really new technology so I can expect for there to be a lot of problems that will need to be fixed.
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Jongho James Lee February 22nd, 2009 at 20:02
I remember seeing that in the magazine and was really interested. However, I think it wouldn’t be that good compared to the big desk top ones in terms of functionality. It is just too small to handle big tasks.
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Stacia Hazzard February 22nd, 2009 at 20:40
I think it’s a cool idea, but they need to work the kinks out of it. I like my computer to run smoothly and I know sometimes they have a mind of their own, but they need to improve and fix the problems.
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Felipe Burneo February 23rd, 2009 at 01:16
Seems like a very good catch if it weren’t pre-loaded with Windows Vista.
I like the multimedia capabilities and that may be a plus. The most interesting thing of this gizmo might be the low energy consumption capability that cannot be underestimated. Really, I haven’t used one of these before but it may be a nice way of having a computer that size in just to use them to playback Internet videos from hulu.com or slingmedia.com
The designs makes it interesting as it will not occupy that much space and the stylish finish makes it also nice-to-watch. -
Shaun Greene February 23rd, 2009 at 20:18
I don’t know if you like building your own PC, but I’ve built 4 of my own and got twice the computer for half the price, and without all the stupid software that computer manufacturers load on the machines. I like tigerdirect.com for parts, and they have an easy to search website. For home theater pc cases, see
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=3427
Then just put whatever guts you need that have the horsepower.
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