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Conclusion

Writing a review on the latest and greatest and fastest is always easy, all it takes is to run benchmarks that show the desired performance lead over the last generation of hardware and put them into some context. Doing justice to a US$130 multimedia solution with office capabilities along with some limited content-creation power is more difficult, in addition there are the extra hidden costs for memory, storage and optical drives, not to mention the licensing fees for the latest MicroSoft operating system which could be considered a deal-stopper right there.

On the other hand, the EPIA platform has a lot going for it, the least being the absolutely noiseless operation of the unit. Granted, there is a small fan on the processor running at a whopping 6k rpm but even with a quiet power supply, it was not possible to hear whether this little gem was running or not.

Everything considered, the EPIA appears a great solution for any home theater PC (HTPC), with simultaneous access to internet, and built-in office programs. Paired with either a projector or else a big-screen TV, the unit is small enough to be hidden anywhere in a bookshelf to be activated via remote controls such as infrared keyboard / mouse. Likewise, the USB2.0 and firewire capabilities make the EPIA an ideal companion for downloading of digital home videos which, if necessary, can be redistributed via Ethernet to a more powerful system for editing or, well, some people just like to take their time ...

For the average office user, anything going beyond the capabilities of the EPIA is overkill. To rephrase, in a home-office environment particularly as upgrade path for outdated 486 / Pentium machines, it is hard to overlook the price / performance ratio of the EPIA. This kind of consideration is even more important in the corporate environment where any upgrade usually involves quantities from a dozen up. Public libraries, schools and other institutions that depend on low maintenance / low power consumption and even or especially internet cafes are a similarly suitable clientele for the EPIA.

In conclusion, while the EPIA cannot compete with any other PC out there in terms of performance, it has the low price, low noise, low maintenance and low electric bill advantage combined with great audio and video playback and the combination of these factors could be a very convincing selling point.

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