Jetway's MiniQ gets rave
reviews!
Polywell QBox 865T, created using Jetway's MiniQ,
was recently praised in CNet
Reviews. The author Matthew Elliott states, "The first system
we've seen with Intel's new 3.4EGHz Prescott chip, the Polywell Qbox
865T is proof that good things come in small packages. Gamers on the
LAN-party circuit won't mind toting the Qbox to and fro, and with the
ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card found on our $2,450 test system, space-constrained
consumers get a PC and a TV in one. The Prescott CPU, paired with 1GB
of fast 400MHz memory and a speedy 10,000rpm hard drive, gives the
Qbox the power to handle a variety of multimedia tasks. In our test,
the system felt peppy even when engaged in heavy multitasking that
included recording TV while surfing the Web and burning DVDs. Plus,
the case's good looks mean that you won't need to find a way to hide
an ugly PC tower behind a bookshelf."
He also adds, "LAN partiers who are always on
the go won't find a more portable package than the Polywell Qbox 865T.
The system measures 7.5 inches by 8.3 inches by 13.1 inches (H, W,
D) and weighs 12 pounds, hardly heavier than some notebooks. Any father
who's packing the trunk of the family roadster for vacation would be
proud of the orderly job Polywell did squeezing the necessary components
inside the bread-box-size case. The interior has just enough room to
house a full-size graphics card along the left edge, and next to that,
Polywell managed to leave room for a full-size PCI card. Audiophiles
and movie buffs could use the open slot to upgrade to a sound card
should they choose...Our Qbox 865T review unit supported 5.1 surround
sound out of the box, having reassigned the pink, green, and blue integrated
audio ports to the front, rear, and center channels. There's even a
sticker on the back panel that labels which port is assigned to which
audio channel. The back panel also serves up the usual legacy-port
suspects in addition to an S/PDIF-out (digital audio) port, three USB
2.0 ports, and an Ethernet port. Our test system's versatile All-in-Wonder
graphics card is a multimedia powerhouse with DVI, video-out, video-in,
and cable-TV ports.
Power up the machine, and you'll soon notice the
blue LED on the front panel. It displays the time and some system information,
such as the CPU temperature and the hard drive activity. Above and
below it are sliding panels that hide external expansion slots and
ports. With the panels closed, the Qbox 865T looks like it belongs
in your living room instead of a back office. Hidden behind the panel
above the LED is a seven-in-one media-card reader and a floppy drive.
The other panel hides a pair of USB 2.0 ports and two FireWire ports
along with microphone, headphone, and S/PDIF-in ports.
In the weeks leading up to the launch of Intel's
new Prescott processor, rumors swirled that the chip would debut with
a speed of 3.4GHz, or 200MHz faster than the then-speediest Pentium
4 on the older Northwood core. The first batch of Prescott systems
we received, however, all used the 3.2GHz version of chip. It wasn't
until we spoke with Polywell that we found a 3.4EGHz Prescott chip.
(Polywell also sent us a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition chip, which
we also tested on this configuration for comparison.)
The Qbox 865T also gave us our first glimpse at a
new 10,000rpm Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive. Up to this point, we'd
seen a few high-end systems with speedy 10,000rpm SATA drives, but
they were all relatively small at 36GB. Helping ease the decision between
capacity and rotational speed is Western Digital's new 74GB 10,000rpm
drive. It's a smart choice for the Qbox 865T because the small case
doesn't allow for additional hard drives.
Polywell offers just about any graphics card you
can imagine on the Qbox 865T's online configurator; our test system
used ATI's All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro. With this versatile card, you can
play the latest games, watch and record TV, and input and output a
variety of video formats. In our tests, this card displayed a smooth,
sharp TV picture on the bundled 17-inch LCD. The system also includes
a wireless keyboard and mouse and not one but two remote controls,
which should keep you computing comfortably whether you're sitting
alertly at a desk or relaxing in a La-Z-Boy.
With room for only one optical drive, Polywell chose
well in outfitting our Qbox 865T review unit with a multiformat Sony
DVD burner: the DRU-530A. Aiding DVD creation is the bundled Sonic
MyDVD app. A five-pack of games concludes the software bundle and features
titles such as Unreal Tournament and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Our
Windows XP Home test machine was missing any sort of productivity software.
Application performance
We saw impressive results from the Polywell Qbox 865T on SysMark 2002. The
3.4EGHz Pentium 4 Prescott system outperformed similarly configured 3.2EGHz
Pentium 4 Prescott systems from Dell and iBuyPower by roughly 15 percent.
We attribute part of this increase to the faster chip. Other factors in
the Qbox 865T's strong showing are the file system that Polywell uses and
a lightning-fast hard drive. Polywell systems typically do very well on
our tests because Polywell divides all of its hard drives into three separate
partitions, with the main partition on which we run our tests using FAT32.
The vast majority of systems we see use a competing file system called
NTFS, which has more overhead than FAT32 and extra security features. Although it bested other Prescott systems, the Qbox 865T still trailed
systems using Intel's high-end and very expensive Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
CPU. In fact, Polywell sent us a second CPU, a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 Extreme
Edition, which we swapped into the Qbox 865T for additional testing.
Even though it is clocked at 200MHz slower than the 3.4EGHz chip, the
Qbox 865T's SysMark 2002 score rose by 3 percent. Still, that's not a
huge difference when you consider that going from the 3.4EGHz Pentium
4 to a 3.2GHz Extreme Edition adds more than $500 to the price. To measure application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark 2002,
an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark
measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications
(such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet-content-creation
applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver). 
3D graphics and gaming performance
With ATI's All-in-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card, the Qbox 865T is a
good fit for both gamers and couch potatoes. It performed nearly as well
as the other high-end Radeon 9800XT cards did, and it gives you the bonus
of being able to input a TV signal. With 54 frames per second (fps) in our
high-end Unreal Tournament 2003 test, gaming performance was more than adequate.
And in our anecdotal tests, the system never once choked or sputtered when
tackling a variety of multimedia chores.
To measure 3D gaming performance, CNET Labs uses Epic Games' Unreal Tournament
2003, widely used as an industry-standard benchmark. We use Unreal to measure
a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8.0 (DX8) interface at a 32-bit
color depth and at a resolution of 1,024x768 and 1,600x1,200. Antialiasing
and anisotropic filtering are disabled during our 1,024x768 tests, and
are set to 4X and 8X respectively during our 1,600x1,200 tests. At this
color depth and resolutions, Unreal is an excellent means of comparing
the performance of low-end to high-end graphics subsystems. We report the
results of Unreal's Flyby-Antalus test in frames per second (fps). Polywell
pads the diminutive Qbox 865T with a sizable warranty, covering parts for
three years and labor for five. Onsite service doesn't come standard, but
you do receive 24/7, toll-free phone support for the first year. Support
is still a toll-free call away after the first year but only during business
hours--Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT and by appointment
on Saturdays.
Printed docs abound. We found the manuals for
the motherboard, the graphics card, and the case itself all very
helpful when setting
up and configuring
the system. Online help is minimal; you'll find only a very short
FAQ page, some driver downloads, and a form to submit a problem
to tech
support." The excellent praise the MiniQ has received on the CNet website is proof
that MiniQ is an industry leader and the world's most exciting up-and-coming
product. The awards and terrific reviews we have received are proof that
the Jetway MiniQ is a great invention.
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