The Shuttle KPC, An Affordable PC
Among the more popular posts on this blog are my DIY $200 PC posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). There are a few compromises with that route, such as it involves using a motherboard with an integrated 1.2GHz Celeron processor, which isn’t exactly good for much more than file serving and basic web browsing. Shuttle’s KPC, or “Korporate Perfect Cube”, is meant to be the machine for bargain PC shoppers and at $99 for the barebones unit, or $199 for a complete system, Shuttle has hit the nail on the head.
The front plate graphic is user-replaceable.
Tom’s Hardware posted a full review of the KPC and only really knocked on the KPC for lacking an optical drive and having limited expansion capabilities (ex: no PCIe slot if you wanted to slap in a beefy video card). On the plus side, the KPC brought out “surprisingly good performance.”
Consumers who opt for the barebones model can slap in whatever DDR2-667 RAM, socket T processor, and hard drive they like. Well, almost any processor they want. Since the power supply is only 100 Watts it can’t run with something like a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 quad-core processor. Regardless, I’m quite surprised that a computer this affordable comes with 5.1 channel audio and gigabit ethernet. The ability for users to put in more powerful processors makes the KPC a viable HTPC but it would be better poised for the task if there was a PCIe slot.
The ~$200 pre-built system includes a 1.8GHz Celeron 430 processor, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive, all of which is sufficient for the casual PC user. As for the quality of Shuttle systems, they are great machines, something I can attest to having owned SB61G2 and SN85G4 systems years ago.
Can the Shuttle KPC fit into your life or one of your friends’ lives?
Looks pretty good, I was waiting for this to come out.
I really want to get one, but really do I need ANOTHER computer? Self-restraint where are you?
@Tim you’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking “$200? How can I pass this up?”
This is pretty awesome. Still, the laptop computers are better. PCs are so yesterday. *lol* although they are very useful for home offices. Feh. As long as you’ve got a good laptop (and don’t forget to defragment and fix your registry), you have nothing to worry about.
Hrm.. this is just a Mac Mini in a larger/uglier chassis. I love cute things and all but this is just.. incomprehensible. Whoever designed this concept needs to be shot for wasting so much space in that chassis. Don’t even get me started on the specs, this is worse than the Eee PC and it doesn’t even come with a screen. I’d rather build up either up a Mac Mini or one of the upcoming mini-ITX with the Q35/G35 chipsets. I guess this is just the hardware elitist in me coming out but this box doesn’t deserve any spotlight.
I think of three places for this baby-
1. as media center, connected to an HDTV in the living room
2. as an always on desktop for some light tasks (basically downloading)
3. as a plain old file/print server
Certainly there is a market for these small boxes, even though I prefer them to be more cute (like my mac mini :)
5.1 audio is an illusion here… I’m sure it’s fine with DVDs (other than the missing optical drive ;) ) But I imagine the KPC would be hard pressed to and record HD from an ATSC USB tuner.
HOWEVER, this could be the perfect web surfing and email device for my great uncle - he needs a new computer and this form factor is something he can manage without me flying up.
Paul where can I buy one of these? They on the market yet?
Paul i think you need to update the link in the top right hand side of your blog (Apple) to a picture that includes the iPhone, the Air and all else Mac that you have..
haha
I’ll pass, although when they were first announced I was all about them. But sadly, they haven’t quite lived up to the hype, and I’ve found something better. The $199 price blew me away, but Newegg has them for $230, or 15% over what they said, and that’s before shipping.
Instead, I picked up a nice little refurbished HP s3200t off of uBid for a reasonable sum of $210 shipped. For that paltry amount I garnered a 1.6 GHz Pentium Dual Core (the new ones, not the P4’s), a gig of ram and a 160 gig hard drive, all options on the KPC. But it also came with a mem card reader, dvd burner, and an open PCI-e slot (half high though).
The KPC’s a good attempt, but there’s better deals to be had.
Actually, it’s not all that cheap and not that good looking. It actually looks rather big (compared to the Mac Cube [ does anyone remember that at all? ] ) and for $99 you only get the rack (?!). No way.
“Post a comment, receive Stammy points.”
Yet there no longer appears to be a post count section in the right bar?
I love this thing. As soon as I have some cash to spare, I’m buying one.
@David: Yeah, I noticed that feature was removed at pretty much the same time you started being a twat. I guess Paul figured that if people like yourself were just coming here to troll and insult him and the bulk of his readers, it probably wasn’t wholly necessary to have a link to the said troll’s website on his site.
@Brandon, very hypocritical that your the one trolling/flaming now… and ‘bulk’ of his readers? Since when did Paul have two readers!? Anyway i will leave him to take the appropriate action on your off thread abuse.
@Paul, will you be buying one of these to do a real life test/review? Would be nice to know how it handles Linux as a daily desktop machine including how it handles different types of media.
shuttle makes a decent computer? really? that’s not my experience at all. i have the SB61G2 and it simply DESTROYS hard drives, one after the other. the thing is like a little toaster.