Small form factor PC

[CarlDW]

I am looking for a relatively cheap PC to be used purely for ripping my CD collection and transferring my music onto a portable hard drive. I have done some research and the two I have in mind are the Lenovo Q190 (Intel Pentium 2127U, 1.90 GHz, 4GB RAM) or the Zoostorm 7270-8007 (Intel Celeron 1037U, 1.8 GHz, 4GB RAM). I appreciate that a seperate CD/DVD drive is required for the Lenovo.

Both are similar in price, but would either of these be competent at the task I want to use them for? I have a tablet for web browsing/emails etc. They would be connected via HDMI to my TV.

Thanks for any assistance/views on this.

 

[chebby]

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/optiplex-3020m-desktop/pd

Supplied as standard with Windows 7 Pro (and a Win 8.1 license) which is a big plus right now.

 

[CarlDW]

Thanks, that looks like a good spec, however the budget for this is tight and so around £200 incl. VAT would be as much as I could spend.

Would either of the suggestions in my original post be any good? They have fairly positive reviews across the web. Or anything else I should be looking at?

Thanks again.

 

[cheeseboy]

Thanks, that looks like a good spec, however the budget for this is tight and so around £200 incl. VAT would be as much as I could spend.

Would either of the suggestions in my original post be any good? They have fairly positive reviews across the web. Or anything else I should be looking at?

Thanks again.

either of the two pc's you quoted would do fine for what you want them to do

 

[CarlDW]

Thanks for the help - I think I will go with the Zoostorm as the optical drive is built in, and it has a 128GB SSD (smaller capacity I know, but quicker).

On another note, both machines come pre-installed with Windows 8.1, which I have heard is pretty poor. How easy would it be to uninstall and use something else, like Windows 7 (which I use daily and am familiar with) or Linux?

Or how about something different altogether - would Vortexbox work?

 

[cheeseboy]

yep, you could install vortexbox or daphile - both very good.

Windows 8 isn't anywhere near as bad as people make out. You can set it to boot staight to the desktop, and also use something like classic start 8 that gives you the start menu back and you've got yourself a more up to date version of windows 7 if you don't like the out of box experience it gives.

I guess what it boils down to is do you want to run the box headless (ie without a monitor and just control from a tablet/phone) or do you want to control it normally through the tv. If it's the former, then I'd probably plump for Daphile over vortexbox nowadays as the headless control is a lot nicer. If you want to run it through the tv, then go the windows route. If you are familiar with Linux then that would be fine as well, but if you're not, then it might be too much of a headache (it's great when it works, but if you get any problems, it can be a nightmare to get working unless you are already used to using it and doing stuff through a command line)

 

[CarlDW]

Thanks. I don't have much knowledge of Linux so would stick With Windows.

How would a headless set up work, how do you control your music library etc? I was intending to run the hdmi into my TV.

 

[cheeseboy]

usually with the headless set up, you plug it in to a monitor or pc to set it up then once it is up and running you can control it either from an app on your tablet/phone or through a web browser on your phone/tablet/pc/laptop.

 

[CarlDW]

Thanks for the info.

Having looked into Vortexbox and Daphile, it occurs to me that I do not intend at this stage to use the computer as a server, but purely to rip my CD collection onto portable hard drives. For now, I will stick with Windows and use decent ripping software such as EAC or DB Poweramp.

 

[cheeseboy]

Thanks for the info.

Having looked into Vortexbox and Daphile, it occurs to me that I do not intend at this stage to use the computer as a server, but purely to rip my CD collection onto portable hard drives. For now, I will stick with Windows and use decent ripping software such as EAC or DB Poweramp.

ok cool. Both Daphile and Vortexbox can do that for you as well, but if you are more comfortable with windows, go for that for the time being I'd say

In the future if you get curious you could always install them and try them, they are exceptionally easy to install and use.

Good luck!

 

[CarlDW]

Thanks cheeseboy. Once I have the room to expand into 'proper' hi-fi (whatever that entails these days) I would probably use the PC as a media server so Daphile or Vortexbox would fit the bill nicely.

First things first though, so I better make a start on ripping my 500-odd CD's (in FLAC format, of course)...

 

[cheeseboy]

First things first though, so I better make a start on ripping my 500-odd CD's (in FLAC format, of course)...

beer and/or wine is highly recommended for this activity