HP's Digital Entertainment Center a Good First Attempt at a Living Room PC

We don't usually test complete PCs here at Tom's since we take it as a given that you, our readers, are fully capable of judging and analyzing the different components that go into them and drawing your own conclusions. But living room PCs (LRPCs) are a different matter. As we said in our last generic article on the subject, a PC is really the best way of centralizing your home entertainment content in all its different forms. But to be a success, the PC in question needs to meet a certain number of criteria.

Until the arrival of the DEC, the only solution was to assemble one yourself. That required not only finding a suitable case , but also a workable remote-control interface. So it makes sense to buy a complete unit designed from the ground up for living room use - especially since HP's pricing is fairly reasonable.

Why A PC?

To quickly sum up the advantages of having a computer in your living room, here's a list of the devices whose jobs it can handle:

...plus a few that are at the leading edge of current technology:

With a PC, you can bring all these activities together in a single device that's also connected to your wireless network and to the Internet.