[Soorma]

Guy's,

after giving my ibm desktop a try with xbmc, I'm ready to move into a small htpc (nettop pc ) do you guys have any good recommendations?

below is 3 nettop i did research on and all 3 looks great

http://tinyurl.com/32fedwb ( Acer Revo AR3610 ) $329.99 newegg & $299 frys

http://tinyurl.com/yem7q8t ( Foxconn NT-330I ) $199 newegg

http://tinyurl.com/2exswy3 ( Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11-U ) $229 newegg & frys

most likely i will be runing ubuntu 10.4 linux

Thanks

[Soorma]

anyone guys .. please help i wanted to buy this hardware this weekend

[Riffmaker]

The acer Revo 3600 is good to go out of the box. You may want to replace the HDD with SSD for a snappier menus and response but otherwise its a complete system.

The other 2 system are barebone systems and you'll have to buy both a hard drive and ram. The Foxconn330i is really small nand seems to have some issues. Runs hot(its really suggested that you either run xbmc off a thumbdrive with no hdd or use a ssd to reduce heat inside. The fan also seems to be "always on" in xbmc live/linux. And it seems to be a pain in the butt to get the wifi to work out of the box. Some people have got it to work, others just gave up and got an external doggle.

The Zbox also needs hdd and ram. It has the next gen ion chip which can upscale Divx SD content. The CPU also uses a little less power. Over all the last gen ion and atom chip perform nearly the same as this next gen. In fact there are some drawbacks to the new ion chip. There's a whole long thread about getting the zbox working with xbmc. So while its not as simple as install and go if you follow the thread you should be able to get it working fairly quickly.

Personally I'd go with either the Foxconn or Revo. The Zbox seems like alot of work to get running at the moment and doesnt offer much more performance. It might be "next gen" but in reality the only advantage to using it is that it uses a little less power. Revo's good to go out of the box, and the foxconn is really tiny. All will play 1080p video's no problem.

[Soorma]

thanks for reply

[poofyhairguy]

Upside to the Zotac is that since you add the RAM and HD, you can just add a SSD from the start. But the Revo is MUCH better supported on the forum. Comes down to how nerdy you are- if you are not a Linux hacker stick to the Revo I think.

You aren't doing it right till your ION box has a SSD!

[Soorma]

Upside to the Zotac is that since you add the RAM and HD, you can just add a SSD from the start. But the Revo is MUCH better supported on the forum. Comes down to how nerdy you are- if you are not a Linux hacker stick to the Revo I think.

You aren't doing it right till your ION box has a SSD!

thanks hairguy,

i don't want to spend over $200 to $250, i have had sodim ram & 60gb ssd card in my netbook that i can take out and use it in zotac. what would be the downside if i do go with zotac. i don't want to buy $330 revo and then add ssd to it.

i can use zotac with win7 also

Thanks again