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The Foxconn A3500 Nettop we received for review was a ‘bare bones' unit. This means it isn't supplied with a hard drive, memory or operating system. It is therefore up to the user to get the extra parts and to install their own operating system.
The bundle we received included a power adapter and cable, Software and driver disc. There was also a stand for the product, and some cable converters and magnetic ‘anti slip' feet.
The unit is protected inside bubble wrap.
Foxconn also supply a mounting bracket which is used to attach the product to the back of a screen.
Above left you can see the A3500 with the mounting bracket attached. The front panel offers a headphone and microphone jack, a media card slot, two high speed USB 3.0 ports and a reset and power button. There is also a small speaker included.
Above left, the mounting bracket attached, from the underside. The rear panel offers Wireless connectivity, 4 USB 2.0 ports, DVI and HDMI out, and a gigabit lan connector for networking demands. There is an audio out port at the right, next to the power connector.
With such a small chassis design, air flow is critical and both side panels are vented to ensure adequate cooling capabilities.
The finish is really very attractive, the piano black helps give the appearance of an expensive product. Sadly, it is also a fingerprint magnet and we had to clean the chassis everytime we touched it.
No, this is not a Photoshop edit. To give an indication of just how reflective and shiny the surface is, we forced our SLR to focus on the reflected surface (above).
If you don't want to mount the A3500 behind a screen, or vertically with the supplied stand, there are magnetic feet which attach to the underside. This prevents any slipping on smooth surfaces.
As we mentioned earlier, this is a barebones system, so we had to add a 2.5 inch hard drive and some memory to get the system fully operational. We used a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio (7,200rpm) hard drive and 2GB (SO-DIMM) 1333mhz DDR3.
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……..