Pogo Linux: 1GHz for under $1000

Audio and Storage

The audio configuration of the system was pretty plain. While our evaluation unit featured a SoundBlaster 16PCI sound card, the Altura currently ships with a SBLive! 128 Value edition. Unfortunately, in order to make the $999 price point, the system doesn't come with any speakers. Although Pogo does offer a $40 set of Midiland 2.1 speakers, you may be better off consulting our Sound Reviews section and picking out a set that better fits your needs.

A CD-ROM drive comes standard with all Altura systems. While ours came with a Creative Labs 52X unit with a remote control, the default unit is a Sony 48X drive. Pogo does offer Pioneer DVD drives as well as a Panasonic 8X CDR/RW drive as options.

Quite possibly the best performance decision Pogo made with the Altura is the choice of outfitting their systems with a relatively small, but fast hard drive. Our test sample had a 20GB IBM 75GXP while the current Alturas use a 30GB version of the 75GXP. As you will remember from our review of the unit, the 75GXP is one of the fastest 7200-RPM Ultra ATA/100 drives available. While the ATA/100 specification doesn't help the 75GXP's performance much, Pogo did ship our system with the drive on the Promise ATA/100 controller.

The 75GXP is installed in a removable hard drive rack with a fan. While the fan does help cool the drive, the fact that the rack is plastic does hurt the transfer of heat away from the drive somewhat. Normally when the drive is attached directly to the chassis the metal chassis can help conduct heat away from the drive. This isn't so much of a problem for 7200-RPM drives as it is for the 10,000-RPM SCSI drives, but we don't really see a need for even including the drive rack.

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On a somewhat disappointing note, Pogo didn't screw the 75GXP to the removable rack and simply allowed the rack's cover to keep it in place. This may have been an oversight on Pogo's part but it could also mean that the drive has the potential to move around quite a bit during shipping.