Digital Trends

Gateway 610XL

March 31st, 2004 | by

Introduction

When it comes to Media Center and Home Theater PC's, there are several ways to build them. The first way is to integrate the PC with your home theater system; put it into a receiver-like case and slide it into your audio video rack. Or you could opt to integrate the home theater experience into the PC itself while making the system as streamlined as possible. Gateway offers two computers which target both of these types of integrations. The 901X Media Center PC looks like a home theater receiver but packs a powerful computer inside, and the 610X Media Center PC which looks like a sleek lifestyle computer but packs home theater functions into the system.

In this review we look at the Gateway 610X Media Center PC priced at $1999.99 and purchased directly from Gateway.

Design and Features

Physically the Gateway 610X Media Center PC is one of the smallest desktop computers in the consumer market. Its physical prowess falls in the same category as the Apple iMac and Sony VAIO W series of home computers. It features an all-in-one design with every aspect of a full-fledged desktop computer integrated into the system, including speakers and a sub-woofer. Now if you think that is nothing special, consider what the 610X packs beneath the hood. With a 3GHz Intel P4 w/Hyper Threading CPU, 512MB of memory and a 128MB ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card, the 610XL has the horsepower to stomp many of the desktop systems out there.

But of course we all know it takes more than a good video card and a processor to make a legitimate Media Center PC. So Gateway decided to add a 17” wide-screen LCD display, a DVD writer, 802.11g wireless networking, an FM radio tuner, integrated speakers and a subwoofer.  Gateway chose Microsoft's Media Center operating system to tie everything together.