United States of America
About 2 years ago I got myself a Gateway SX2801 pc as client. I bought this because of its size and features. This little computer has been a very welcome surprise ever since. I’ve not been able to match its power and silence, whisper quiet, with any of the HTPC’s I build myself.
Recently I replace 2 of my older HTPCs with a newer version of the Gateway SX series (http://us.gateway.com/gw/en/US/content/model/PT.GCRP2.003) and like my original these are also super quiet and powerful. Unless I put my ear close to the computer, I can’t hear it running. This is what makes it perfect for living rooms and bedrooms.
These little computers come with all the connectivity you need (LAN, WLAN, USB 2, USB 3, HDMI etc.), a decent build-in video chip set (Radeon™ HD 6550D), plenty of HDD space, 6GB RAM and plenty of processing power.
The only negative is the bloat ware it comes with, but that only took me 15 minutes to remove, and that you have to create your own restore and driver disks.
As I mentioned I have 3 of these running in my home as MP clients now, all with the same configuration, which means I only have to maintain one and just copy it over to the others (which is easy to automate with a few lines of code). These little buggers are now just crying out for MP2.
Just wanted to share my good experience.