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Epson's budget slim-line tower, the Endeavor AT960
Japanese consumers looking for a slim-line tower PC on the cheap could probably do worse than Epson's latest Endeavor desktop, the AT960, which features a 2.53GHz Celeron D processor and 256MB of DDR2 RAM for $420. More yen lets you step up to a Pentium 4 chip as fast as 3.8GHz, up to 2GB of RAM and 250GB of hard drive space (compared to the sparse 40GB in the base configuration), WiFi, and a DVD burner -- but no amount of money can improve upon the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 integrated graphics. Likewise, there's not much you can do about the dearth of input options, so the four USB 2.0 hookups and serial and parallel ports are gonna have to stand in for the missing FireWire.
Epson Endeavor MR3000 desktop with Blu-ray option
Epson may be first out the door with a PC using Panasonic's recently announced LF-MB121JD Blu-ray drive (or at very least, they're one of the first to announce such plans). Epson will make the drive available as an option in its new Endeavor MR3000 build-to-order desktop. The PC is available in a variety of configurations, with prices starting at ¥60,900 (about $520), but with the Panny Blu-ray drive, the price will start at ¥126,000 ($1,074 -- ahem!). The MR3000 is expected to begin shipping in mid-May, though the BD version, presumably, won't be available until June at the soonest, which is when Panny expects to start shipping the LF-MB121JD.
