March 9 2010
Categorized Under: Desktop Computers, Entertainment, Gaming
Tags; atom, D510, htpc, intel, ION 2, nvidia, Shuttle, Slim case, X325
You what I like about the recent years when it comes to home entertainment? NVIDIA Ion! That’s right, the combination of Intel’s Atom an NVIDIA’s ION is the perfect combination that gives you extremely low prices and pretty high performance. And things just got better too, thanks to NVIDIA finally getting around to making the ION 2 official. We are already seeing the ION 2 pop up on several devices and here we have something that should please anyone who is looking for a slim, stylish (relatively), quite and powerful rig to use as an HTPC. This is the Shuttle X325, a slim nettop that looks a good thing in the making.
Continue reading “Shuttle X325 Is A Cool And Slim ION 2 Nettop” »
October 9 2009
Categorized Under: Desktop Computers, Laptops
Tags; 24inch, carbon fiber, DVR, HDTV, htpc, multimedia machine, sony, vaio, Vaio CW series, Vaio L series, vaio X series, WUXGA
Sony has launched a slew of new Vaios this week and they rounded up the launching spree with new Vaio CW series notebooks. There was the highly anticipated Vaio X, that caused a bit of disappointment when it finally came out. And then there was the Vaio L that looks like a really good option for those who want a nice little HTPC package that can be their main entertainment machine. Continue to the other side for the full update.
Continue reading “New Sony Vaios: The X, The L And The CWs” »
October 2 2009
Categorized Under: Desktop Computers
Tags; acer, aspire, asrock, asus, atom, atom 300, blu-ray, cheap htpc, cheap nettop, dual core, eb1501, eee box, et2002, et2003, htpc, ideacenter, intel, ion, ion 330, lenovo, nettop, nvidia ion chipset, october 22nd, okoro, oms-q200, q100, q110, r3600, remote, revo, singl-core, tv-tuner, windows 7
Photo by nDevilTV from flickr via CC, click for original
Nettops are to desktops what netbooks are to notebooks. Thankfully, there is no chicken and egg story here. It can definitely be said that netbooks came before nettops. Of course, their equivalents have existed much before these modern iterations, so historical firsts are still a mystery.
Nettops are useful in many ways and in my opinion they are more useful at the average home than the netbook on the average lap. That’s because I will take a smartphone if I want the internet and will take my 13inch MacBook to get work done. And ever since NVIDIA’s Ion came to the market, they have been able to playback HD movies and also play a game or two. Ion consumes a bit more power than Intel’s Atom chipset but it is marginally more at about 10 watts extra at peak load.
Hence the Ion has been seeing a lot of action in the nettop scene. It’s especially good for those who want to make HTPCs on the cheap.
Get to the other side for a round up of five new nettops that you should know about if you are planning to buy a new home desktop on a budget and cut down on your electricity bills at the same time.