PopcornHour A-300

Reviews: Media Centres

The Popcorn Hour 300 media centre series is here! Taking over from the much appreciated 200 series, it brings its lot of changes, beginning with an entirely new interface. The first through the lab is the A-300, with its new interface and surprising features. Worthy descendant of the PCH A-210, the PCH A-300 has, it has to be said, the same stamp of quality. The casing is still entirely in aluminium and you can only tell the A-210 and the A-300 apart by the air vents. The A-300 runs in perfect silence as there's no fan. Either a 3.5 or 2.5-inch hard drive can be easily inserted but it is a shame that screws and screwdrivers are needed to mount it. We'd have preferred a rack system without any screws. The infrared remote is identical to the one used on the 200 series and quite right too! It's a high end model that we particularly like: excellent handling, a soft touch coating on the back and, above all, backlit buttons. Power consumption hasn't really changed in comparison to the old generation and there are still two standby modes. Prolonged pressure on the On/Off remote button turns the device off completely (0.7 Watts) and it then takes 20 seconds to turn it back on.