Lots of Style, Less Substance

In creating its stylish new 610XL Media Center PC, Gateway assembled an attractive all-in-one PC with a host of goodies, including a TV tuner and Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 operating system. But as is often the case, appearances don't tell the whole story.

The new version of the Media Center OS lets you use the compact 610XL for standard PC chores but wallow in digital entertainment the rest of the day. You can stuff its 200GB hard drive with recorded TV shows or with masses of images from your camera--easily uploaded via the built-in seven-in-one media card reader--and then view it all on the wide-aspect (16:9) 17-inch LCD (at its 1280 by 768 native resolution).

The $2000 shipping model I looked at supplemented these offerings with integrated 802.11g wireless connectivity, a remote control, an excellent wireless keyboard and mouse, a combination DVD and CD burner, and long list of useful ports and jacks. There's also a subwoofer that nicely boosted the quality of the LCD's built-in speakers.

On paper, it's a spectacular package. But my experience using it was somewhat disappointing. Despite its 512MB of memory and 3-GHz Pentium 4 CPU, the PC responded sluggishly at times, and juggling mouse, keyboard, and remote control got a bit confusing. Though it emphasizes music playback, there's no way to adjust bass or treble. And the OS's touted Display Calibration Wizard, which fine-tunes visual quality, was hidden away in the Display Properties control panel applet for the video card.

This good-looking PC does many things, most of them tolerably well. But if you desire all-around high quality, keep shopping.

Gateway 610XL Media Center PC

A beautiful media-centric PC, but response times felt sluggish. Price when reviewed: $2000 Current prices (if available)

Anne B. McDonald