Arctic Cooling MC001-BD Pro Reviews

The Arctic Cooling MC001-BD is a great decision if you are looking for a silent, feature rich, high definition media device for your entertainment area if you don't plan on running too many CPU-intensive applications simultaneously. It's passive cooling and sleek, compact design make it perfect for beside the TV. It has ample USB 3.0 ports and other various ports for connection to your entertainment devices, older and new. It's plug-and-play ease of use is a very attractive feature, as well. Access to the internet is easy too, thanks to the WiFi. I recommend the Arctic MC001-BD Entertainment Center for anyone who is looking for a media device to use for internet, movie playback, TV shows, and music. I don't think it's quite equipped for anything more complex, so it's perfect for the average user.

The Arctic MC001-BD may be their first foray into the HTPC space. And the company has leveraged their skills to cool the entire system passively extremely well. Overall the unit is not only compact, but also offers very capable internals with a Blu-Ray drive, 500 GB Hard drive and 4 GB of memory. Thanks to the standard components within the unit, one could easily upgrade these. Arctic has also included all the necessary connectivity in the front or the back to utilize all major aspects, like USB 3.0, SD Card reader, both analog and digital surround sound and of course HDMI. The only small gripe I have is the somewhat weak, internal wireless USB dongle in the base of the device. Arctic has also thought about the sound aspect and offers a capable Bluetooth and software combination to allow up to three of their P311 headsets to be connected at once, allowing three people to view a movie together or listen to music without disturbing anyone. This actually works extremely well - after the initial setup. Once the headsets are paired audio is automatically sent to the devices and the home theater is muted and all headsets are in sync perfectly, making the viewing of a movie pure, cable free joy. In terms of range these headsets offer plenty to be used even in the biggest living rooms, but may prove inadequate to walk around within the entire home. Even with the functionality, surprisingly clear sound and lack of static or hiss during use, these headsets are surprisingly affordable.