SPECIFICATIONS:
- Hip-e hangout Customizable Interactive Experience
- 17" Widescreen Ultra High Res LCD (1400 x 900)
- Full-Screen TV Experience with Recording and Electronic Programming Guide and Remote Control
- Desk or wall mount
- beatbox Detachable Speaker System with Maxx Bass Technology
- nodeboard: includes Wireless Keyboard, Mouse and Docking Station
- Wireless Keyboard with Internet Hot Keys, Media Keys, and Customizable Skins Palm rest
- Wireless Mouse With Translucent Base
- Docking Station with 8-in-1 memory card reader and docking bays for playme and readme
- DVD Player/CD Burner Drive
- 1.5 GHZ Intel Pentium M processor
- High Performance Video
- 512MB SDRAM Memory (expandable to 2GB)
- 120GB Hard Drive
- 6 USB Ports
- FireWire Port
- Broadband-ready with built-in Ethernet and 802.11 Wireless
- Integrated Microphone
- Customizable Skins
- Sweeptakers LED for contests and promotions
- Standard Software includes: Microsoft® Windows® XP, Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition Trial, AOL Instant Messenger
*specifications pulled off of hip-e's website
The first thing that is extremely evident with all this is their extremely ridiculous emphasis on "customizability." The machine is designed to be a big piece of eye candy with tons of frivolous features that are obvious grabs at making more money from people who want to change the stock look. Their emphasis on features like the "Sweepstakes LED" is a bit disturbing. They are pulling your attention away from what this machine is actually capable of in a very deliberate manner. More than half of their specifications are related to how it looks so "hip" and "stylish."
The hardware powering this machine is also none too impressive. With a 1.5 Ghz Pentium 4M, the processor is going to cause a lot of bottlenecking, especially if the person who uses this PC likes to do things like run AIM, burn a CD, Surf the internet and play music at the same time. For a machine designed to cater to teenager's wants, they certainly equipped this machine with a weak processor. Must have been a design oversight. Or perhaps a blatant attempt to save money on part costs while charging you extra; only time will tell. With 512 megs of RAM that is said to be SDRAM, they are either REALLY behind on technology or made a nasty typo. 512 megs of RAM isn’t that bad. However, if it actually IS SD-RAM, you are losing a terrific amount of money to a legacy product. SD-Ram is only manufactured in a few factories. If it is laptop memory, the cost is looking to be even more excessive. This machine screams out "lack of power" all over the place. The computer's graphics are called "High Performance Video." Based on their claims of allowing you to capture video and watch TV, it is assumable that they are using an All In Wonder card by ATI, as they are the main supplier of those parts. But if it were decently powerful graphics, you think they would have said which graphics chip they have in it if it were something worth bragging about. From the sounds of things, they didn't put anything very good in there.
Oversights in this computer are to be found everywhere it seems. These flaws in design include the 120 gigabyte Hard Disk Drive and CD-Burner/DVD Drive combo. The PC is designed to capture Video off of your TV, store MP3s, and games, according to the hip-e website. With only 120 gigs, that hard drive space is going to go away fast. Without a DVD Burner, it's going to be ridiculously difficult to save the content that you recorded, since most teenagers aren't going to want to burn a CD for every episode of Dharma and Greg they record. It would have been a good idea to give the machine a full DVD burner. Or perhaps a bigger hard drive. More oversights follow. Visuals are supplied via a 17" widescreen monitor at 1400x900 pixels. That is quite high resolution for such a small screen. Most people will have to look pretty darn close to their monitor in order to see everything clearly, unless they want to make the text and icons obtrusively large when working on papers, surfing the internet, or even looking at the desktop. High resolution LCDs often have low refresh rates. It is unlikely that the response time on this thing is any better than 25ms; if it is, you would think they would say so. This machine is being aimed at a demographic that typically knows their tech. If they aren't talking about it, it's likely that they don't have it. Then again, if it does, they aren't giving teenagers much credit to their intelligence. Overall, this combination of parts seems to be nothing but a marketing gimmick. If you think about what this machine is touted for, it soon becomes evident that the parts they put into this machine are inadequate. This is likely to become even more poignant if anyone tries to play an advanced 3D game like a fist person shooter or the popular racing game “Need for Speed Underground," which takes a significant toll on all but the most powerful graphics cards. Since these are all popular pass-times for teenage boys, you would think that they would have put in a graphics card that is powerful enough to run them good. I don’t think they have it since they aren't talking about it.
Their included software leaves a bit to be desired. They are only giving the trial to the newest Microsoft word, which people commonly use to do their homework, reports, and other items that students need their PC for. With how much this machine costs, the consumer deserves a full software package; not just a trial version of an absolute necessity.
The people at Digital Lifestyle are either not thinking straight or don't care. All the tech in this computer is either in it for bragging rights or to appear trendy. This PC looks to be nothing more than an attempt to latch on to what is popular at the moment, much like Apple's Imac was in 2000. With the wallet hit you are going to take for buying one of these, you would be far better off building a PC of your own. If you do the math, you will find that you can get a PC with much more power-almost twice what this PC offers-with a Shuttle SFF barebones system with either an Intel Pentium 4, Athlon XP or possibly even Athlon 64 that will do everything that the hip-e pc does better for the same price - and that's including a 20.1" Viewsonic VP201b 16ms response time monitor and an All in Wonder 9800 pro 128 meg video card. It is evident that this machine is nothing but an attempt to milk the cash cow of the teenage demographic for as little investment as possible, and is therefore not worth getting at all. Unfortunately, I foresee many sales of this computer, with the promotions by pop stars and other extreme marketing. Perhaps they should invest some of their advertising funds into getting better parts.
Everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is just speculation at this time. However, based on what we have seen so far, this is likely to be the same response that other entities will be bestowing on this computer. Unless hip-e pulls a rabbit out of its hat and proves me wrong about this whole deal, I highly recommend that you avoid this PC at all costs. NOTE: This article is an opinion and nothing more; as such, you can feel free to disagree or prove me wrong.
