eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
- Revolutionary slim and compact PC that provides full HD multimedia entertainment as well as everyday productivity
- It is the ideal entertainment solution for streaming movies, TV shows, music and other online media
- AMD Athlon Neo II Processor delivers the balanced performance you need to enjoy your favorite applications
- Connect to the Internet fast and reliably with built-in 802.11b/g/n wireless and Gigabit Ethernet LAN connectivity.
- Instantly connect to a big screen TV through a single cable for sharing HD web content in high quality.
eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop comes with these specs: AMD Athlon II Neo Processor K125, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), NVIDIA nForce 9200 Chipset, 2GB DDR3 Memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9200 Integrated Graphics, 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, Multi-in-1 Dig
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(out of 15 reviews)
List Price: $ 299.99
Price: $ 299.99
Review by E. Leroy for eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
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Update: After reading other reviews below and trying all the steps mentioned, I am still unable to achieve watchable frame rates in Hulu under Chrome, IE or Hulu Desktop. I have Flash 10.1, July 2010 Nvidia drivers, Aero off, all unneeded programs uninstalled, and haven’t installed any software on this box but xbmc. Full screen Hulu video (I’ve been using Burn Notice to test) is unwatchable. Some other reviewers claim it’s fine, though, so maybe your experience will be better than mine. That said, I am still very happy with this box as I never intended to watch flash on it anyway.
Update Sept 1: I’ve bumped this up to five stars. I broke down and picked up the AverTv Volar USB tuner, and this box is capable of recording and playing back 1080i content via clearQAM in WMC.
First of all, the item definitely does not weigh anywhere near 9lbs. I think that was a mistake in the original press release.
I’ve had this for two days and so far it’s been what I expected for my first nettop. The bloatware wasn’t too bad and setup was fast and easy. Keep in mind the wireless mouse needs a USB receiver (included) so you’re losing one of those USB ports right off the bat. The hdmi port is also in a pretty bad spot.
I am using this to stream up to 720p (so far) over wireless g/n and xbmc is working great under the original windows install. Boxee, however, dropped frames occasionally in 720p / matroska. 720p was also fine in Windows Media Center, so part of the blame does lie in boxee’s internal codec.
If you’re looking to stream Hulu on this box, I wouldn’t recommend it. I tried with both older versions of Flash and the latest version, and made various tweaks (increased frame buffer in BIOS, aero on/off, etc), and it was not really watchable in any browser I tried. I don’t really use Hulu or flash, though, it was just a test; others more knowledgeable may get it to work.
I am using the box with a 42″ samsung and a surround sound setup via the optical audio. So far it’s fulfilling the needs I had for it, and it runs quiet and fairly cool. Seems like a decent box for the price, and it replaced a hulking old HTPC that was heating up my living room for no good reason. I’ve given up on tuner cards, but I bet you could get a USB tuner working on this without much trouble.
Review by Ed Doolittle for eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
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The eMachines ER1402-05 computer has many attributes, the first is price. Compared with other computers in its class it was the only one with Window 7, 64-bit Chipset, WiFi, wireless keyboard and mouse, and Netflix is pre-loaded.
Windows 7 Media Center allows you to watch Internet movies and TV, pause, rewind, and record using a high-speed Internet connection.
The eMachines ER1402-05, winner PC […] editors choice award, is ready to use as part of a multimedia entertainment center allowing access to online streaming video. I was pleased to discover Netflix’s software was pre-loaded, as it was not mentioned in the manufactures specifications. The Netflix download worked perfectly as did Amazon and CBS streaming video. Using HDMI the sound quality and graphics on my HD TV was outstanding.
The unusual gloss black diamond shaped case is mounted on silver pedestal and bottom edge lights up green when the powers on. The black diamond is an attractive and stylish, unfortunately all the cables plug into the top edge.
My only complaint is the lack of a DVD player, which I purchased separately.
I compared this computer with several in its category, and the Dell’s Inspiron Zino HD was the only one with a DVD player, but on Dell’s web site, customers complained that they had problems with streaming video, and the Inspiron Zino had issues with overheating. The Dell with Windows 7 was $377.99, WIFI add $25.00, for wireless key board & mouse add $75.00 total cost$ 477.99. I also compared the eMachine to the Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H, and Asus Eee Box B201 & B202.
Compared features include Window 7, 64-bit Chipset, AMD Athlon II Neo processor, a 160GB hard drive, 2GB DDR3 RAM, a media card reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and integrated graphics. Outputs include HDMI, optical S/PDIF digital audio jack, VGA, 4 USB 2.0, audio and Microphone jacks. Inputs include RJ-45 Ethernet and Multi-in-1 digital media card reader. eMachine included a wireless key board & mouse, which was an extra charge with the rest. There was no comparison at this price.
Things you need to know:
* The ER1402-05 earned “Editors Choice” award as the stand alone nettop to get if you’re trying to save money while still getting a full-fledged PC computing experience.” 7/29/10 PC mag […]
* Consumer Reports Rates eMachine Number 3 most reliable computers. (Chart in the Sept. 2010 edition, pg. 32. Apple and Compaq were 1 & 2)
* EMachine warranty is for one year, Live Chat Support is for hardware only. There is a charge for technical support via telephone. I would recommend that you buy an extended warranty from Square Deal or another source.
* At first downloads from YouTube and Hulu websites were not as fast as other sources of video. The fix was to download Adobe Flash player “Flash1 10.1”.
* Gamers, the ER1402-05 is a great Internet TV viewer, and works great on Photos but gamers should be aware that although DirectX11 3D graphic rendering works just fine for most games, but don’t expect high end 3D games like StarCraft II to perform as well. The fix upgrade the NVIDIA drivers.
* The computer identified my Panasonic LCD HDTV and set the screen resolution for 1920 x 1080, the high resolution is great for streaming video and games but the resolution had to be lower for regular use.
* One internet review stated that “you can mount it on the back of any VESA-compatible display”, (cnet news June 25, 2010,) there is no such mount.
* There are no USB 2.0 ports on the front; all four are easily accessible on the top edge.
* Weight: 5.7 pounds per the manufacture and the computers dimensions are 7.1 x 1.2 x 7.1 inches, the base is 4″ wide and the unit stands 11″ high
* Wireless keyboard is small, 12 ½” by 5 ½”, standard two button mouse with scroll wheel.
Improvements that I would like to see are an enlarged base to hold a DVD drive and move most of the cable input ports to the base.
This computer will do the job for a very reasonable price. If you want to see the nearly infinite amount of internet video on your living room HD TV the eMachines ER1402-05 is an outstanding buy.
Review by Vaibhav Patel for eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
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This is a perfect little computer hookup to a TV to watch netflix/hulu/youtube. It has built in wireless and HDMI output. This gets rid of lot of wires that would need otherwise to hook up a computer to a TV. It comes with minimum bloatware. Its pretty quiet and requires very less space. Its a no brainer for people who needs a cheap media center PC.
The rest of the review is specially for those who are interested in the details of how this computer is best for media center.
I needed a PC to do following things.
1). Watch videos off of my network drive – WD world book.
2). Stream HD channels from my HDHomeRun box.
3). Record shows in HD to my network drive.
4). Download movies/videos off of internet in the background to my network drive.
5). Stream my Video library on the home network so that I can watch it on Xbox in other room.
I wanted a computer to do all of the above and my budget was $300. I also didnt want to wire my whole house in order to achieve this.
Not all of the above worked out of the box. I had to fine tune this bad boy to get the full juice out of it. Remember this computer has a single core and 2GB RAM to work with. However, NVIDIA 9200 comes in handy to do lot of video handling especially HD.
Tweaks in the order I did.
1). Get rid of bloatware including office works and other software trials.
2). Removed Norton Internet Security and installed the Norton Antivirus that Comcast gives away for free.
3). Disabled – Norton back up service, Identity protection service. These services eat lot of RAM and I can live without these protections. Also I wasn’t gonna do anything related to money on this computer. So, do not care about these stuff.
4). Disabled Win 7 Aero Graphics by changing the theme to Windows classic. I dont need fancy animations for this computer to open a window.
5). Disabled lot of windows components such as Tablet services, assistance services – You can disable these things by going to ->Add Remove programs -> add remove windows components.
6). Install CopSSH, so that I can dial into this computer while I am away.
7). I had to upgrade all the drivers – sound, chipset, display from the emachines website because I had issues streaming HD content through Media Center. After that everything worked fine. I found that NVIDIA has a newer display driver on its website. Hence, I upgraded that too. After upgrading the display driver, the choppiness of video on went away.
8). With above tweaks, the PC uses little over 700MB after boot up. So I have about 1GB of Ram for actual media center activities. Around 256MB is unusable because its shared by NVIDIA.
After all these tweaks, I setup my Windows media center with my network drive and HDHomeRun. So now, I have a fully functional media center which allows me to watch movies/videos off of my Network drive and also watch/record local HD channels. I use bit torrent to download videos. I can also manage these downloads remotely by dialing into this computer through copssh. Everything for under $300. Couldn’t ask for anything more.
Review by Jean Farmer for eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
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I was pleasantly surprised with this little PC. I’m using it specifically to hook to my Sony LCD HDTV and it works like a charm. The HDMI hookup pushes both videa and the audio, something I didn’t realize at first. It works wonderfully. I can check my email on a giant screen, if I so require, or more importantly I can stream video to it in great definition. I’ve been very pleased with this all around. The wireless mouse and keyboard work very well right out of the box – but you might need to read the instructions. It took me a minute to realize I had forgotten to get the little dongle out of the mouse and plug it into the USB port on the PC. Once I figured that tidbit out, I was set to go. Everything worked like a charm. It’s a great little PC that does what it advertises. It’s small enough to sit next to my TV and not be noticable so much. I will admit, the green lights on it are a tad bright in the middle of the night. I had to put some black paper over the footing so the green light would stop reflecting all over the place. If it’s not sitting someplace you are trying to sleep, you will never notice this though.
Great PC. I would recommend it if you need an inexepensive PC for either your TV or for everyday use. It’s reliable so far and it’s darn cute.
Review by Steel2244 for eMachines ER1402-05 Desktop (Black)
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I jsut recieved this today and I have to say I am quite suprised that the machine performs so well for the price.It’s been a purchase so far that I would highly recommend which I don’t do that often for emachines.It’s relatively quick very small and only had a minmum amount of bloatware. I can’t wait to see how it will perform wth an upgrade to 4gb of ram.