Polywell MiniBox 965Qx Small Form Desktop PC

The Bottom Line
Polywell's MiniBox 965Qx provies a solid all around computing experience. With its standard desktop components, it provides plenty of performance in a relatively small package. It is also customizable for those that may not need two LCD monitors or what to switch around features.

Pros

* Dedicated 3D Graphics Card
* Plenty of Hard Drive Space
* Twin LCD Monitors

Cons

* No Software Included
* Above Average Price

Description

* Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 Dual Core Desktop Processor
* 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
* Two 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drives
* Sony 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer DVD Burner
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT Graphics Card with 256MB Memory
* Twin 19" (1280x1024) LCD Monitors
* Gigabit Ethernet
* Eight USB 2.0, Two FireWire, 9-in-1 Memory Card Reader
* 14" x 9" x 11"
* Vista Home Premium

Guide Review - Polywell MiniBox 965Qx Small Form Desktop PC
Polywell's MiniBox 965Qx desktop uses their traditional cube style case and replaces the older AMD based system with the more current Intel Core 2 architecture. It doesn't use the latest chipset, but does provide support for many of the desktop processor models. Powering the base configuration is the E6320 dual core processor that provides it with plenty of power. It is matched up with two full gigabytes of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory to let ot run smoothly even with Vista.

The MiniBox cube design allows it to have space for a number of full sized desktop components and this really benefits the storage space. Polywell even packs in two 250GB desktop hard drives to provide it with a surprising 500GB of total storage space. It also provides a 16x dual layer DVD burner from Sony that is definitely a step up from notebook style burners in many small form factors. This gives the MiniBox a clear edge in storage or most mini PCs.

In addition to the storage space, Polywell packs in a lot of graphics features into its 965Qx. The system can fit a standard PCI-Express graphics card. In fact, they have included a NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT Direct X 10 compatible graphics card in the system. It isn't the fastest card out there, but is sufficient for most needs and casual PC gaming. The main reason for this though is to drive the two 19” LCD monitors that come with it. This dual monitor setup can be useful, but one can downgrade to a single monitor setup if needed.

All of this does come at a bit of a price step over many other small PCs. Most mini and slim PCs cost less, but don't have as many features. Of course, Polywell generally does not include any software packages installed on their PCs beyond the base operating system.