NCIX.ca - a good source for nettops
After reading an article by @shawnp0wers about the Giada Slim-N20 I looked to see if any were available in Ontario. The usual suspects TigerDirect and Canada Computers don’t carry the Slim-N20. Neither did NCIX.ca, but NCIX did have a number of Net Top’s (very slim PCs designed to be network computers rather than traditional PCs). They also carry the very cool (but underpowered for what I want it for) D-Link Boxee Box.
If you’ve been reading my posts you’ll already know I’m a big XBMC fan. The reason I’m looking at Net Top computers is as an elegant replacement for my Dell Netbook which is currently serving as our XBMC system. The Netbook works okay, but I notice it struggles a little when paging through various movies and TV shows – the graphics are fine, just not smooth. Basically it needs a better video chipset and dual core to help with the processing of HDMI video.
Now our Samsung television only does 1366×768, so the system doesn’t have to do full HD, but having the ability to do full HD would be helpful for the future.
There are a number of Nettops on the NCIX web site, but one caught my eye (mostly because it was on sale when I looked). The Zotac ZBox HD-ID31-PLUS-U has a dual core 1.8GHz CPU, Gigabit LAN, and Nvidia ION graphics with 512MB video RAM. One NCIX reviewer suggested it felt a bit sluggish. I’m wondering if upgrading the default 1GB 800MHZ RAM to 2 x 2GHz RAM (4GB) would vastly improve the performance. Difficult to say and it makes me a bit queasy to spend over $400 to find out when a decent desktop system could be built with a high end video card for the same (or less) price.
My chief complain about desktop PCs is they’re mostly desktop-sized and Maria and I want an elegant (small) solution. Bigger is not better in this case. At the same time I can just see something like the ZBox overheating. I’m also not terribly fond of the ZBox’s slim profile. I like my Net Top to be a little thicker. Without a doubt I could build a sweet XBMC box out of standard PC-sized hardware, but I just finished getting rid of one Antec desktop case, I really don’t want something bigger.
The Net Top isn’t high on our shopping list, but it’s one of those luxuries that if the price was really right (say $200ish) we’d probably hop all over it.
One last note: at one point I considered an Apple TV box, particularly because I heard some people had installed XBMC on it. In traditional Apple fashion I’ve heard that Apple made sure the next version only worked with Apple software. I’m not a big fan of Apple hardware or software, to me the company represents the worst of proprietary technology on the market. Take something open, close it up and prevent people from hacking on it – not my ideal of cool.
