Medion - details

[Bradley Miller]

At 10:29 PM 12/2/02 -0600, you wrote:
>
>I'm still researching my next computer purchase.  I finally wound up doing
a google search on the Medion system available at Aldi, and found *LOTS* of
info, including ZD reviews, although most of it is in german.  The ZD-Net
review can be found here:
>http://produkte.zdnet.de/test/51/2/2268.html
>
>and even reading through the german, it's possible to determine details
about the system, for instance:
>
>"Auch beim Chipsatz macht man einen Kompromiss: Der Sis648, hier auf einem
OEM-Board von MSI, hilft ganz klar, den niedrigen Preis trotz der
Ausstattung zu halten."
>
>Or what I take to mean: OEM MSI motherboard with SIS 648 chipset.  There's
lot of other details in this and other reviews available online.  Brush up
on your german, or a quick pass through babelfish, and you should have all
the info you need.
>
>It also looks like the $899 US price is a fair bit below what our oversees
cousins have to pony up (1199 Euro), unless something drastic happened to
the exchange rate over the weekend.  :)

Yep, I did the same searches, in fact I even found a message board talking
about people that already had their PC and loved it (released November 21st
in other countries?).  I too did the exchange rate thing because I knew of
these PC's about 2 weeks ago but hadn't learned about the price.  It was
originally quoted to me as possibly $800 . . . and at that price I'd have
taken two.  $899 is still a steal . . . for grins I'm going to take my
60gig drive and try Red Hat 8.0 on the box and see what it finds . . . that
or Mandrake 9.0 . . . haven't decided which to use.  

Did I mention this thing is QUIET?  I've had to check to see if it's moving
air . . . (it is).  Occasionally I can hear a murmur like maybe the fan is
cycling on and off (don't know for sure) but it's certainly quiet.  I'll
have to whip out a DB meter for a real reading.  

Oh, and I was goofing around last night and tried to burn a CD-R for
playback in a DVD player.  I had a little WRC (rally car) video so I burned
it and then tonight I popped it in the home DVD.  It played flawlessly . .
. I was amazed.  I'll have to get out a VCR and try making a few small
movies and see how that goes.   Now I'll be really itching to get a DVD
burner . . . jeez.

-- Bradley Miller