Digital Trends

Gateway FMC-901X May 11th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

Design and Features

The terms Home Theater PC (HTPC) and Media Center PC mean two completely separate things to a lot of tech enthusiasts. Traditionally a Home Theater PC indicates a computer system which you could hook up to your home theater system. This system provided all of the components necessary to watch movies, listen to music and browse the internet. But not just any computer system would do. It had to look like it belonged with the rest of your home theater equipment and it had to be specially designed to be both quiet and upgradeable.

Most computer manufacturers seem to be taking a variant of their desktop PC line and throwing Microsoft Windows Media Center PC Edition on the system, this may fool most people, but true enthusiasts of this niche know better. There are of course a few smaller companies that are making home theater PC's that fit the part, but due to their company size, are unable to get access to Windows Media Center OS. Enter Gateway computers.

In our very first Gateway Media Center PC review, we completely bashed Gateway for slapping the Media Center OS on a desktop computer and calling it a Media Center PC. The system was very much unrefined, and a lot of the components simply did not work well together. Things have changed since then and as if Gateway magically listened to what we recommended, they have created the FMC-901X.

The first thing you will notice about the FMC-901X is that it doesn't look like a PC at all; the system looks just like a large home theater receiver. This is exactly what we had in mind for a system targeting this niche. The case this system is housed in is exactly the same width as the rest of your home theater components and even includes small feet on the bottom of the system. On the front of the system is where you will find controls for powering up the system, navigating the CD player function and the operating system (without the remote control). There is a nice LED display located below the DVD drive tray as well as a flip down front panel. It is behind this flip down control panel where you will find even more system controls, including a 6-in-1 media card reader and FireWire and USB 2.0 inputs which are perfect for hooking up a digital camera or camcorder.

Gateway offers this system is 3 base configurations. The first configuration has the 901 system powered by a 2.6GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 256MB of memory and an 80GB hard drive. The second configuration has the 901 system powered by an Intel Pentium 4 CPU running at 3GHz, 512MB of memory and a 250GB hard drive. You can add Gateway's Plasma TV to any of these configurations. Inside the FMC-901X is where you will find the sweetest components of all. The video system is powered by an ATI 9800PRO video card with 128MB of memory, and S-Video and DVI outputs. The sound card is a monster and has Dolby Digital 7.1 capabilities including SPDIF digital optical output. The TV tuner has its own card and is not integrated on the motherboard or video card. This is perfect for upgrading this component at a later date, perhaps if you decide to switch over to HDTV completely. Since this system is packed with hardware, there are no PCI slots left over for expansion and there is no integrated WiFi either forcing you to use regular Ethernet to access the internet.

On the external peripheral side, there is the slim and highly attractive remote control which uses a polished aluminum casing, perhaps even anodized aluminum. The remote control is long and slender and has just the perfect weight to give it a very high quality feel. For navigating through the system on the PC side, Gateway includes a Gyration wireless keyboard and mouse. Home theater hobbyists will be very familiar with this brand of mouse and keyboard. Overall the system design of the FMC-901X is well thought out and very attractive. The Gateway gold color chosen for this system may be a turn-off to some people, but it really is not as bad as you might think.