Epson trots out tiny ST120 HTPC, finds room for Blu-ray / TV tuner
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 16th 2008 2:02PM
posted Dec 16th 2008 2:02PM
[Via Engadget Spanish]
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The Dell Studio Hybrid does pretty much the same things, and starts at $449. Otherwise, it seems like a nice box.
The stripped version is still more expensive then a Mac Mini - hmmm - i think id rather just get the mini with a little dual boot -get yoursdlf a HDMI DVI adapter and a mini Toslink - cheaper and better oops- i thought epson was a printer company haha -- hopfully Apple will drop some Blu ray heat soon -
Bring it to the UK lower the price and I'll think about it.
They have done none of those things and I still thought about it.
"Please, keep it where it is, I don't want it." was what I thought.
Double the ram and up the hard drive to at least 120gb and sounds like something i'd like to introduce to my TV for $800, though i'd appreciate something bigger with lotsa hard drive space too (thinking about the size of a DVD player, 2tb or so... you know... of DVD backups)
though i still expect THAT to come in under $1000 ;)
Hell, slap an apple logo on that thing and you have a mac-mini-pro ;)
but really, if the costs come down and the specs go up looks like something i could get behind.
Seriously, 1GB of RAM?
I'd expect AT LEAST 2, preferably 4 from what's going on here, and only 80GB HD, and it has a tuner? Unacceptable. I can't record crap on 80GB and keep music and other things
Yeah, this thing is absolutely horrible. On top of that... $800 for the Blu-ray? What the hell?
That looks sick! Granted you could build one for less, but will it look that sick, I think not. Just goes to show there's a high price for style.
I dunno, theres some awsome Mini ITX cases out there, and Nano-ITX is getting there too
Is it possible that it would be cheaper to actually pay someone to manufacture one for you ?
yes it is and this person is me.
Give me $1500 and I'll make you a much much better HTPC.
Just choose the case.
Color it white and put an Apple logo on it and you've probably got something like the mac mini update that should come soon.
(oh but take out the blu ray cause thats a "bag of hurt")
Price is about right...
Seriously... only 80gb hard drive and 1gb ram? Even forgetting about the small (by vista standards) amount of ram, but what kind of HTPC has that small a hard drive? I guess they expect us to use external drives or burn blu ray discs a lot.
HTPC with 80GB hard drive. That's exactly my collection of X-files series. I guess all the extra I'd have to keep on thumb drives, like windows OS, corelDraw, office and so on .
$800 for a bluray WTF?
you guys don't seem to realize there are other needs that people have instead of just BIG hard drive etc. etc. I'd actually prefer a smaller harddrive and wifi / lan to connect to NAS/Server. I want my living room layout with as small a footprint as possible. This guy is nice .. i'm just amazed at the price jump for bluray. i assume it is becuase it is a slot load player. because a BD rom player is running at $100 at fry's with writers running at approx $200.
One word: Epson. One Response: Run aaaaaawaaaaaayyyyY!!!!!
Another day, another HTPC i can outdo at a lower cost.
Here is a similar option:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/mp45_bdr
Well, that costs about $1000 once you add everything on the low-end of each (cpu, disk, etc) though with 2GB...
Or you can head over to dell.com and buy an 80gb ps3 for $340, buy a 300gb hdd for another $70, and watch it on your new $800 42", 1080p, 120hz, philips lcd, and have money left over to buy a nyko ps3/ir remote kit for $20, and a harmony one remote from amazon for $150. You might even have a bit left over to buy some popcorn kiddies!
The stripped version is still more expensive then a Mac Mini - hmmm - i think id rather just get the mini with a little dual boot -get yoursdlf a HDMI DVI adapter and a mini Toslink - cheaper and better oops- i thought epson was a printer company haha -- hopfully Apple will drop some Blu ray heat soon -
Amen.
You could get all of those specs in an HP Slimline for over $1000 less...
1gb of ram? How will that do any bluray burning?...it needs to be 2gb...and much much larger hard drive. Price must drop significantly...under 1000 and people will start looking. At that price no thanks. Does this thing have a seperate power brick...cause that would loose some appeal if it does. I like the bluray burner, wish I could just put my LG on there, but looks like it's slot loading, my regular size LG burner won't fit in there.
its a blue ray writer not player everone seems to be not noticing that...
Also a slimline-slot loading BD writer, very nice, but i have a supplier who can get these OEM for £200.
£200 doesnt = $800, especially not in these dark days.
orbitmicro.com recently launched a mini-pc line, just do a search for helix from the main page, although i didn't see any with blu-ray i called and the sales rep that they are adding it before the week is out, but some of these start from like 500$ with equivalent specs to that epson. and they still sell XP :D
80 gigs? wtf?
if this is anything like it's printers, you'll spend lots of $ on maintenance costs (ink cartridges) and it will perform horribly below par. RUN AWAY!