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The Fusion platform has impressed us this year. The mixture of solid overall performance and miniscule power drain is a heady combination for a high definition media center or server. A system like this can be left on 24/7 and not add much to the overall electricity bill … always a major concern within today's delicate economic climate.
The Foxconn NT-A3500 Nettop is a pleasure to use and the design of the chassis is very appealing. The ‘bare bones' approach appeals to us, because you aren't being forced to pay extra cash for a slow, second grade hard drive. You can slot in your own large mechanical 2.5 inch drive, or super fast solid state drive, depending on your demands.
When compared to the Atom processor, AMD have clearly got the edge right now. Their systems are demanding less power and offering higher performance for a similar amount of money. We have reviewed many Fusion boards in recent months, but the Foxconn NT-A3500 is certainly a special product. Not only can you mount the complete system behind a screen or TV, but there is a dedicated ‘vertical' stand for it, or it can be used in a traditional horizontal configuration next to a bed, for minimal physical footprint.
Foxconn might not be well known as a ‘system maker', but they have many years experience building products for companies such as Apple, so their pedigree is really not in question. The only negative with this particular product is that the chassis is a magnet for fingerprints. We only had to touch it once, for dust and fingerprints to appear, so keep a polishing cloth at hand.
Pricing for the barebones unit will be £175 inc vat. Factor in a decent mechanical hard drive and some DDR3 memory and you are looking at £250-£300 inc vat total. We have been told that ‘pre-configured' units will be on sale shortly and we will append this page when we have confirmed pricing information.
Pros:
- Great performance for the price
- cool running
- Ideal for 1080p playback and 24/7 server duties
- Strong connectivity
Cons:
- chassis gets dirty really quickly
KitGuru says: Foxconn are onto a winner
Piano black is an instant turn off for me. I bought a PC chassis years ago with the same finish. in a day it looked about 3 years old and a total mess.
I am still not sold on Fusion either, its better than Atom for sure, but what is the big deal?
Whasts the big deal about fusion? the power consumption. It makes great sense in mobile sector and for 24/7 use.
It looks great, and the low noise is a selling point, for me anyway as I hate fans whirring in a room.
They should sell them preconfigured, people wont want to start fitting components, I know a lot of people who cant anyway.
Well thought out, but I have an atom pc here and its a pain to use. I am positive fusion feels just as slow, even if its a bit faster.
Core i3 for my next media center…….
Yeah, it looks nice and all that, but man im not going to go for a low powered fusion desktop. laptop maybe, but I want a core i5 or i7 media center !
Thats a really pretty littlemachine and very very small. ideal for a man who is married to a woman who nags when another case is brought into the house.
I like the look of fusion, but im concerned about the performance. I had an atom laptop for a year and it drove me crazy. I cant see it being that big of a difference.
That piano black puts me off, is the white nice looking>? ive only found low res versions online
Loads of USB ports on that, first one ive seen with so many, always a selling point for me.
I dont fancy arsing about inside it, ill be watching for preconfigured ones
I dont think most people here understand what small factor and low power means, 15 and 17 could never compete with this standerd, price, energy, size is unbeatable…
this would be perfect for my car
I own this nettop and I like it a lot. I use it as desktop pc atm because my notebook crashed. The performance is quite good and in “normal” use ( office, surfing etc. ) everything feels fluid. Even multitasking works fine. The price-performance ratio is great and the form factor is just awesome. The configuration and installing of the RAM and hard disk is very easy, even if you don’t know much about computers.
It plays 720p flawlessly. Can’t tell about 1080p atm, sry.
I prefer it over atom. Atom + Ion2 is comparable if you look at benchmarks etc., but working with the fusion system feels smoother in daily use, dunno why. Everything seems to work a bit more fluidly.
In the spec they mention 1066MHz DDR3, you have tested it with 1333MHz DDR3. Would it be possible to use it with 1600MHz DDR3?
What is the limitation of HDD? 500GB?
Hi Hramat. I didnt have any 1600mhz DDR3 handy to test so im not sure if it will run natively at that speed or downclock to 1333mhz, ill try and find out.
The controller should read the latest 1TB 2.5inch drives such as the Samsung Spinpoint MT2 1TB, but again, I didn’t have one handy at the time. I don’t see a problem with that size.
I will go with 1333MHz also. I was bit worried that it would be limited to 1066MHz.
As HDD I will take SEAGATE Momentus XT, 500GB.
I would like to use it with linux or XBMC. Just need to search for additional remote control
I have set the NT-a3500 with
ADATA Supreme Series SO-DIMM DDR3-1333, CL9 – 4 GB
Seagate Momentus XT, SATA II, 7200RPM, 2,5 Zoll – 500 GB
and all runs fine
@ hrmat…. im getting exact setup. Hows Linux running for you? if so, what distro? are you using XBMC with it? Sorry for all the questions, ive had bad luck with Ubuntu 10.04 and video drivers, config. Took a lot of time to get stuff working.
i have overheating. idle temperatures are 60 degrees celsius.
On Load , while playing youtube videos, the CPU reaches 85 degrees.
I think the fan over the cpu is undersized.
I have broken already an hard disk due the higher temperatures. I think the foxconn is not very reliable……..