Videomate T1000W
Life is complicated. You have to make tough decisions every moment of every day. When do you take your morning coffee break, which pub do you go to after work, which game do you spend your weekly allowance on? All difficult, but the decision about how to watch media in the lounge is possibly the toughest of all. Is Compro’s latest high-tech gadget making things more or less complicated? It’s all about what you really want though, isn’t it?
Do you simply want a box where you can stream all the content from your PC or network drives onto your HD telly? Or do you want a functional PC in the lounge so you can surf and play from the comfort of your sofa? Both of these needs can be taken care of simply and for the same sort of price as the VideoMate T1000W in a modern games console, or a small PC such as the Aspire Revo. What the T1000W promises is nothing to do with locating Sarah Conner, but delivering a low-power, upgradeable, one-stop multi-media device. It’s a sexy bit of kit that won’t look out of place in a living room and, with the extra outlay of an internal 3.5-inch SATA hard drive, makes the perfect digital player and recorder.
The built-in DVB-T tuner gives you access to future digital TV channels, and the always impressive Compro software and electronic program guide make it simple to plan your recordings. A dual-tuner would have been preferable though, offering the chance to record and watch different channels, something that a great many of Compro’s PC tuners offer, but other than that the package is fairly faultless. It can take a while to start the device when it’s been unplugged, but the remote is incredibly responsive and the software simple to navigate.




