Like the Pioneer, the Protac Excel D495 is another locally built giant – at this size we’re wading into desktop replacement territory. Not surprisingly, it comes equipped with gigabit Ethernet plus serial, parallel and PS/2 ports and an external Wi-Fi button. Unfortunately, all the USB ports are on the back, breaking the somewhat recent convention of placing them down the side.
It sports a single analog TV tuner, so you can record programs to the generous hard disk, but without a second tuner you won’t be watching another program at the same time. You can also record from external S-Video, DVI sources or the built-in webcam and microphone. The Protac ships with a full-sized remote control, which you can’t tuck it away in the unit, so we would have appreciated some multimedia buttons and a volume control.
An external antenna would also be useful, rather than just the connection. We are disappointed not to find a PCI Express graphics card under the bonnet with the P4 processor, and this is reflected in mediocre gaming benchmarks.
We are also disappointed with the sound, the optional subwoofer would certainly help, and it was one of the noisier units of the roundup.
The 1440 x 900 display does a good, but not outstanding, job of handling video playback and gaming.
When it comes to software, Windows XP Pro is accompanied by a solid range of multimedia apps. As a multimedia centre the Protac has plenty to offer but is missing a few features. It is still the closest thing we found to a multimedia beast with TV tuner this side of $4000. Put it on your short list if you’ve got a strong back and don’t have a fortune to spend.