For the EZ-Buddie 3000, Hi-Grade has taken a small form factor ECS EZ-Buddie barebones system and added some decent hardware. The resulting system has a good stab at being an all-round media centre PC.

Powering the EZ-Buddie 3000 is a 3GHz 800FSB Intel Northwood Pentium 4 which sits in one of ECS's motherboards using an Intel 865G chipset. The CPU is backed by 512MB of DDR400 memory, which you can increase to a maximum of 2GB through two DIMM slots. All of this gives the system an overall SysMark04 score of 150; not jaw-dropping performance but more than adequate for the job the system is designed to do as a media PC, including editing digital photos.

Although the front fascia includes an impressive looking control knob which is claimed to control overclocking, we could only get a measly 10MHz extra speed out of the CPU before it became unstable, so it's best left alone.

For storage, Hi-Grade has fitted the EZ-Buddie 3000 with a 120GB Maxtor hard drive, which is a little on the small side for a media PC, but the optical drive is a handy dual-format Sony DW-U18A DVD writer. There is also a 4-in-1 card reader in the front left-hand side which can read Secure Digital, Smart Media, Memory Stick and MultiMedia flash cards, while on the right-hand side there is a Type I/II Compact Flash card reader.

The good news is that instead of relying on the internal graphics provided by the Intel chipset, Hi-Grade has fitted a 128MB nVidia GeForce 6800LE card, so you can at least play games on the system; the PC returned a 3DMark 03 score of 6,583 under testing. This card outputs to a 17-inch TFT monitor which is included in the price.

To keep the EZ-Buddie 3000 as quiet as possible it uses an external power brick, so at least you don't get fan noise from an internal power supply, and the two internal fans don't add much to the noise level, which is just what you want from a media PC.

Looks-wise, the EZ-Buddie 3000 appears stylish in its black and silver garb, with a black mirrored panel on the front fascia which hold its secret until you power the system up; that's when you get to see the razzle-dazzle of the display.

The EZ-Buddie 3000 comes with a range of multimedia extras. There is an integrated FM radio tuner, and although you can't listen to the radio in Windows you don't have to fully boot up the system to listen to it. It can be controlled either by a button on the front panel or, more usefully, by pressing the FM button on the remote which puts Windows into standby as the radio starts, so its easy to switch between the two functions.

Driven purely by the remote is the Linux-based media centre software which can be booted instead of Windows. When launched, the EZ-Cinema software can play DVDs, audio CDs and MP3s or view JPEGs from flash memory cards. If you want to play DVDs in Windows then there is a version of WinCinema included which, like the EZ-Cinema software, can be activated by the remote.

Rounding out the package is a set of stereo speakers (although the system has an integrated 5.1-channel audio codec), and a wireless keyboard and mouse combination.

Verdict
Hi-Grade has done well with the EZ-Buddie 3000. Not only is it a reasonable performer but with the addition of the multimedia software it also turns into a handy media PC.

Company: Hi-Grade

Contact: 020 8532 6111

Tags: home theater dvd geforce multimedia dvd recorder hardware advanced micro devices universal serial bus