Arctic MC001-BD Entertainment Center
Jan 8th, 2012 | By SimonThe MC001-BD is packaged in a white box about the size of a shoebox. On the front of the package was a large picture of what the MC001 looked like. The bottom right indicates what version is inside the box. Along the left are some of the features included.
One the sides of the box we have the package contents as well as a print out of the features, specifications and a detailed look at all of the connections on the package.
The back of the box demonstrates some of the features of the MC001-BD: Ultra-Slim, Silent, Promising Performance @ Lower Power Consumption, Cinema at Home, Entertainment Anytime, Save Your Pocket, Multi-Room Entertainment Capability, Out-of-Box Experience, Multi-Port Interface, Remote App.
The top of the box has a print of the Arctic Living logo as well as some decals of the various features included.
The package clearly shows what the end-user is getting.
Once the box is opened we see the egg carton enclosure that protects the MC001-E and a second white box with the accessories inside.
Inside the accessory box we have the power cord, WiFi antenna, HDMI cable, Cyberlink BD Solution, Win 7 Home Premium Installation Disc and a short instruction manual.
Of more interest is the MC001-BD inside the egg carton case. The MC001-BD is further wrapped in a soft foam bag and once removed we can see the high-gloss black plastic is protected with a thin film that needs to be peeled off. The enclosure has vented at the bottom, the sides and the top. The instructions state that the MC001-BD must be standing upright to allow the hot air to rise out. It’s unfortunate that the MC001-BD cannot be placed on its side as it would easily fit into most TV stand shelf. Instead, the MC001-BD will now have to side off to the side or inside a 12″ tall cabinet.
The front of the MC001-BD has a 4x Blu-Ray drive at the bottom right, an SD card reader at the bottom left with a microphone and headset port directly above it. Above the headset port are two USB 3.0 ports. The power button and activity LED are then above the two USB ports. Above the Blu-Ray drive is the IR receiver. On the backside we have the WiFi antenna at the bottom left with the power plug at the bottom right. Above the power plug is where the TV tuner would be. Above the optional TV tuner are five USB 2.0 ports, the 10/100/1000 NIC, HDMI 1.3a port, VGA port and TOSLINK optical jack. On the left are the analog outputs for your speakers.
From the outside of the MC001-BD you can see it has the makings of an HTPC with all the features of a regular PC. Let’s look under the hood at what makes the MC001-BD run. The covers of the chassis are held in place by four screws and because the MC001 comes in a barebones flavour there is no warranty sticker to void when you’re doing this! With the top cover removed we can see the 2x2GB Team Group Inc DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24 sticks right at the front. The large heatsink covers the Intel Atom 1.6Ghz D525 processor and AMD HD5430 GPU. When the MC001-BD is standing upright these two chips will be at the top to allow the heat to rise out of the case as quickly as possible. If you’re wondering why there were only five USB 2.0 ports on the back it is because the sixth port is occupied by the WiFi (top left below). If we flip the device over and remove the other side panel we can see the 500GB hard drive (Hitachi Travelstar 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA) and the Slim 4x Blu-Ray reader.
When it comes to the other MC001 models available, you have the option of a complete barebone or adding some of the periphery devices: Blu-Ray, DVD-RW or even getting an SSD.
As the MC001-BD is pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium let’s fire this bad boy up!
