Stephen Johnson's Coffee Table PC

Just face it, Stephen Johnson has a cooler coffee table than you. While you've been busy finding large and colorful books full of puppies and/or Oprah Winfrey to stack on top of yours (OK, maybe that's just us), Stephen Johnson has been building the "ultimate" Media PC inside of his mod-inspired table, and it looks pretty darn sweet. The Coffee Table PC is featured in this month's issue of T3 magazine, and includes a TV tuner, a 160GB HDD, a special LCD for displaying the weather, and is liquid cooled to keep things nice and quiet. There's also WiFi for streaming your media wirelessly, but the £2500 starter pricetag ($4765 US) is enough to send us scurrying back to the relative safety of our collection of kitschy books.

[Alex @ Aug 9th 2006 6:46PM]

I doubt is coffee table is cooler than mine

[Tull @ Aug 9th 2006 6:54PM]

I have no coffee table for comparison.. ='(

[Lemmiwinks @ Aug 9th 2006 7:01PM]

UK readers and BBC2 viewers - does this remind anyone of Dragons' Den last week?

[Henry @ Aug 9th 2006 7:20PM]

Maybe it shouldn't be liquid cooled, but instead make one part where the cpu keeps it warm, so you can keep a cup of coffee warm on it.

[bliss @ Aug 9th 2006 7:23PM]

wow.. but a special LCD for viewing the weather (only?)

[Cody at choosemyname.com @ Aug 9th 2006 7:32PM]

Woah! That's some serious hardware! The only dilema is deciding if you should or shouldn't put your feet up while watching tv.

[seamus bartlett @ Aug 9th 2006 7:43PM]

Great. Something really cool and super expensive to bang my shins into.

[d3 @ Aug 9th 2006 7:45PM]

Loudest. Coffee table. Evar.

[ChrisXS @ Aug 9th 2006 7:46PM]

I'm not really a fan of snaking 15ft hdmi and power cables accross my floor to actually hook it into a home theater. Do I really want to run a coax tv cable to my coffee table?

A pimped out media pc within the media cabinet plus some bluetooth peripherals and a viewsonicAirpanel/sony ux50/nokia770 would be the ultimate in htpc cawfee table bling.

[Wolfrain @ Aug 9th 2006 8:25PM]

Why would anyone want to give them selves back strain by looking directly down at the screen. No more than ten minutes I would be a belt to watch tat thing and it is overpriced garbage. £2500. I could build my own for half the price. Is this the same guy who could not speak because he was too nervous on the Dragon's Den (for people outside the UK it is a show where you entrepenaurs will have to convince one of five multi millionaires who are worth like atleast 150 million quid each to give them a boost to invest in thier new profound ideas. There is only been one that has suceeded, same episode with this table. It is an egg iron/toaster if you must know) This would never suceed. BTW if it is the same person the guy who made this sold his house to fund this project.

[Me @ Aug 9th 2006 8:37PM]

Looks freakin ugly.... I can be done much better....

[markie @ Aug 9th 2006 8:48PM]

I doubt it if it's cooler than my coffee-table. Mine is a Sony Video Projection system, dating back to about 1983. A similar model starred in Scarface which gives it ultimate coolness credibility imho ^_^

http://geektechnique.org/projects/Sony-KP5020.html

screengrab from scarface with the same coffeetable:

http://geektechnique.org/img/sonyCRT_in_scarface-1.jpg

...and an overview-picture with the projectionscreen:

http://geektechnique.org/images/38.jpg

>but the £2500 starter pricetag ($4765 US) is enough to send us scurrying back

...I paid 50 euros 2 years ago and it still runs like a dream :D (I use it as my everyday TV, with my Media Center connected to it)

[Eli @ Aug 9th 2006 9:00PM]

It's been done, and it's been done better, cheaper, and more attractively.

[Harold @ Aug 9th 2006 9:04PM]

What a piece of junk. I could build something 5x as good for half the price! It's also ugly!

[d3 @ Aug 9th 2006 9:26PM]

Hey markie, I used to have one of those! My sister gave it to me because she couldn't use it in her new apartment, too small. Several years later, I gave it away when I got a 61" rear proj.

[Aaron @ Aug 9th 2006 9:49PM]

Wolfrain, uh... The screen isn't in the table, so you don't have to worry about "back strain" from looking down at it...

To everyone else saying they could do it better, well, prove it. You could do it, but would it have the same polish and completeness? I think it's cool. Expensive, but cool.

[PacketMonkee @ Aug 9th 2006 10:20PM]

This is frickn' stupid.
In reply to Aaron: yes, it's 'complete' and 'polished', but It's unnatractive and a stupid idea - end of story. The only thing you get when you polish a turd is a polished turd.

[whatever_man @ Aug 9th 2006 10:21PM]

fugly

[PacketMonkee @ Aug 9th 2006 10:21PM]

Also, I hate the idiots who think that just because someone can't do better that they have no right to an opinion. *looks at Aaron again*

[Shaun @ Aug 9th 2006 10:33PM]

Prove it? Why?

It's flippin obvious how to build one that's better/cooler than that. Simple - encase the PC so you can't see the geeky insides and neon lights. Who cares what it looks like inside apart from teenage PC geeks.

[geek @ Aug 9th 2006 10:53PM]

i'm sorry, this isn't cool at all.

[Special_K @ Aug 10th 2006 1:00AM]

I guess you have to look at it from the perspective that you get a kickass media PC, essentially a home theatre replacement (minus the TV and speakers), a nice coffee table, and unlimited street (or living room) cred.

[Corry Strong @ Aug 10th 2006 1:40AM]

I wouldn't call mine better, just different. I just used a mac mini and mounted an LCD under some plexiglass, but I can raise it up (which it usually is).
pix:

http://www.spymac.com/galleries/show_photo.php?picid=451253
http://www.spymac.com/galleries/show_photo.php?picid=451252

[Amy Hikari @ Aug 10th 2006 1:42AM]

Pretty neat. What I'd really like to see, though, is a mini-PC built into something small that doesn't take up much space. For some of us, space is precious and we can't fit something like a coffee table into what we do have free. :)

[Unregistered & Ignorant @ Aug 10th 2006 2:27AM]

I always had this thought of building my computer into the computer table. Obviously I didn't do it. :P

Maybe build it inside the keyboard slider compartment or something. Add the virtual laser keyboard, and a bluetooth mouse, and tada, "where's the computer" :P

[chipfat @ Aug 10th 2006 3:13AM]

This doesn't look like the same thing that a couple of readers have mentioned in connection with "Dragons Den" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/ - The guy with the coffee table idea there (Nick Nethercott) is currently on the front page of that site. Anyway, Nick's idea had the display integrated into the top of the coffee table, which meant that you did have to lean over the table to watch it. Personally, I can't see any use for a coffee table mounted PC. Media PC's just need to be small and quiet so you can tuck them away!

[Claudiu Spulber @ Aug 10th 2006 4:56AM]

I'll never get such a thing. I broke 2 glass tables by now. Thing is that if the unit is not protected and you break the glass ... you get the picture.

Plus, for that price you can get a more useful coffee table - http://www.fotosearch.com/AGE013/g50-616322/

[Julien @ Aug 10th 2006 7:56AM]

A lot of fun but completely useless. It would be better to have a multimedia PC that you do not see or do not recognize as a multimedia PC ;-)

[Peter @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:13AM]

Super cool coffee table. It will be cooler if there is a LCD monitor under the glass desktop surface. For more nice coffee tables, pls visit http://www.made-in-china.com/products-search/hot-china-products/Coffee_Table.html Thank you very much, Paul Miller!