Sys Technology Mini PC 2800

WHAT'S HOT: The Mini PC 2800 seems to have been built for dorm rooms: It will fit easily on a bookshelf, and a user could easily tuck it in a lockable drawer for security. Lately, Shuttle Inc.'s "bare-bones" PCs have been getting a lot of attention for their compact size, but you could fit several Sys Mini PC's into the same area that a Shuttle unit occupies, with some wiggle room to spare. It's 2.4-inches wide, 6.2-inches high, and 8.1-inches deep, and it weighs 4.2 pounds--less than many notebooks. It can rest horizontally on a desk or stand upright in the included silver plastic cradle.

Despite its dimensions, the Mini PC has plenty of ports for connecting external peripherals (though hanging too many external drives off this PC would defeat its clutter-busting purpose). The front holds two USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire port, along with well-placed headphone and microphone inputs. The back of the case has two more USB 2.0 ports, an S-Video out connector for hooking up a TV, an S/PDIF-out port for connecting a set of high-end speakers or a digital amplifier, and the three audio ports (line-in, line-out, and microphone) found on most desktops.

WHAT'S NOT: Though it has enough newfangled ports to qualify as multimedia savvy, our test unit's monitor made for a less-than-thrilling multimedia experience. The Sys 17-C-MT, a 17-inch LCD monitor, displayed dark colors and inaccurate skin tones in both a DVD movie and photos. In addition, the monitor's on-screen display menu was difficult to activate. The 17-C-MT's text quality, however, was acceptable: The screen displayed crisp, evenly focused type.

We were unimpressed with both speaker options accompanying the Mini PC. The monitor's built-in speakers delivered weak sound, even with the volume turned up; and we had a hard time identifying the LCD's volume-control buttons, which lack identifying icons. The included Altec Lansing AVS300W speaker set didn't sound much better: Two satellites and a lightweight subwoofer generated muddy-sounding bass notes and reedy trebles.

As you might expect, the Mini PC 2800 isn't a gaming PC. Its SiS651 graphics processor is integrated onto the motherboard and borrows memory from the main system RAM, and it posted very low frame rates compared with full-size desktops. However, its graphics performance lags only a little behind that of Dell's OptiPlex SX260, another compact system with a 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 CPU and 512MB of RAM. With performance like its 8 frames per second in Unreal Tournament with the display set to 1280 by 1024 pixels and 32-bit color depth, it's not surprising that images looked jerky, but the textures also looked unrealistic. The motherboard lacks an AGP slot, but you couldn't fit a full-size graphics card into this case anyway.

WHAT ELSE: Our test unit earned a mark of 116 on PC WorldBench 4. Though that's below average for this configuration, it rates as the highest score we've seen from a compact system and is more than adequate for general productivity tasks. On most desktops, you'd get a larger hard drive than the Mini PC's 60GB unit and a faster DVD-ROM drive than the Mini PC's 8X model; nevertheless, these components are adequate for general use.

Like a notebook, the Mini PC 2800 doesn't invite do-it-yourself upgrades: It has no open drive bays or PCI slots, though one RAM socket is open. In any event, if you break the seal on the case by opening it, you void the warranty. You must send the PC back to Sys for upgrades and repairs. On-site service is not provided for this model either, but Sys says that it will charge nothing to install any upgrade you purchase from the company. When we opened the case to inspect the insides, we encountered several tiny screws and had to gingerly remove the outside case and internal metal plates. The comparably equipped Dell OptiPlex SX260 presents no such access problems, but it was designed to be easy for IT departments to service themselves.

As on a notebook, the power supply for the Mini PC lies outside the case, in the form of a longish power brick. Sys has included an infrared receiver on the front of the case, so you can beam your contacts from your PDA to the PC, if you wish.

The Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse set provides hot-keys for adjusting volume settings, plus 11 programmable buttons for launching programs or Web sites. Our test unit arrived with little in the way of documentation beyond a few component manuals.

UPSHOT: It will fit into niches where most PCs can't go, but Sys's Mini PC is pretty much a novelty act: Its performance is ho-hum, and its features are likely to leave you unsatisfied. A better monitor is a necessity, and better speakers are advisable.

SUMMARY

Sys Mini PC 2800 PC WorldBench 4 score of 116, 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 512MB of DDR333 SDRAM, Windows XP Home, 60GB hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, SiS651 integrated graphics using main memory, 17-inch Sys 17-C-MT LCD monitor, Altec Lansing AVS300W speakers, network adapter, V.90 modem, compact case; WordPerfect Office 2002. Onee-year parts and labor warranty; 8.5-hour weekday toll-free support. $1895 800/613-9963 www.sys.com