Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA AMD A45 (Hudson D1) 1 x 204Pin AMD Radeon HD 6310 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: Bought this for a home PC to do web browsing and word processing. The deal was made even better because it came with a free SSD which was big enough for my needs, as I am keeping most user data on a Synology NAS. For this application this system is perfect, it boots in seconds and is almost completely silent. Energy consumption is way less than old box we were using.

Cons: First you install the OS, then the drivers. One small glitch was when I tried to install the OS from a USB stick plugged in to one of the front ports. The install got hung up. Turns out when installing the OS, it chokes if it's via a USB 3.0 port which the front ones are on this box. Did some research, plugged the USB into one of the ports in the back and then the install went perfect. The drivers have to be installed after the OS, this went fine. After this system is set up, you can use the front ports no problem (and they are fast!), it's only a problem when installing the OS.

Pros: I can play any of the movies I have on my server. Bluray or dvd. AMD picks up the HDMI and handles both video and audio (I installed the realtek drivers but let Radeon 6310 drivers handle the heavy lifting. I don't use the wireless. Realtek handles the wired network too. No skip or hesitation using Windows 8 64bit

Cons: I always want the fastest, even when I don't need it. If you want to play any kind of video over an Ethernet network this setup does the job without skipping or hesitation.

Other Thoughts: Win8 score:
Windows 8 64 bit Performance Score:
Processor-3.7
Memory-5.7 (8G RAM)
Graphics-3.9
Gaming Graphics-5.6
Primary Hard Disk-7.6 (ADATA SP900 64G)
Primary movie player: Total media 3 (32bit)
Secondary media player: MPC-HC (32bit)

Pros: Small, silent, runs Windows great (see other comments).

Plays 1080p MPEG-2 & some 720p h264 content fine on Linux .

Cons: Struggled mightily with any 1080p h264 content, and some 720p h264 content on Linux, whether using the open source or ATI drivers.

Other Thoughts: My intention was to use it as s MythTV frontend (I hate having a big loud PC in my living room & bedroom). I didn't do my homework when I bought it, but quickly learned that ATI video is not the way to go for an underpowered Linux HTPC. Replaced it with a Zotac ID80 (with a Nvidia card), and no more problems...

Turned it into a kid's Windows PC, and it is very nice for that.

Pros: Small size, mounts to the back of your monitor, quiet.

Cons: So far none.

Other Thoughts: We purchased these systems to just do a few simple tasks, however I could see these systems used in place of our current desktops. NewEgg had a special and they included 4 GB RAM and we put 128 GB SSD drives in them. Super fast and extremely quiet. The graphics with the DVI connector are superior to the Dell desktops we currently use.

Pros: The system is very small and comes with a mounting bracket to allow attachment to the back of a monitor or any VESA capable mount. Very stable on Windows 7 64bit once I ironed out the driver issues. Built in fan seems to handle the heat it generates although i haven't really stressed the system too much yet. We use it as for a database access terminal and it works great. As other reviewers pointed out, even though the specs say 4GB max, we were able to put an 8GB Skill chip in the unit and it runs without issue. The system boots up quickly and launches apps quickly with a 64GB OCZ Agility 4 SSD (thats more a function of the SSD than the system, but still I thought Id mention it...)

Cons: The main con is that the drivers that Foxconn lists on their website are not the most up to date. We had particular problems with the unit Blue Screening after we installed the drivers off of their website. It turned out to be caused by the ASmedia USB 3.0 driver. As of this writing the driver that is listed on their site is version 1.14.1.0. If you Google "ASMedia 104x USB3.0 Driver" you will find links to the updated drivers. We installed the 1.16.1.0 version which resolved our blue screens, but it looks like they have 1.16.2.0 out now (haven't tried it yet). The only other minor con was that the BIOS options were sparse, but it wasn't really a huge deal for me. It at least had admin password protection capabilities. Since I was able to resolve the driver issue, I feel it still warrants 5 eggs... well maybe 4.75 eggs if that were possible.

Other Thoughts: the WiFi chip it comes with isn't high end, but works fine for most situations. The processor is powerful enough to handle basic computing tasks, but don't expect too much out of it. The GPU definitely helps when it comes to video and 2D/3D acceleration. Overall I'm quite pleased with the system.

Pros: Price, size and capability were all factors in my purchase. I got this for a good deal and run OpenElec on it as a HTPC. It handles playing all of the video I have thrown at it and boot up time is great, even with a traditional HDD in it.

Cons: Wifi reception on the unit isn't great, I get a better signal with other machines in the same location. It does get hot, but I haven't had any overheating problems.

Other Thoughts: For what I got it for, a low usage HTPC, it is great and I'd certainly recommend it for something equally light duty.

Pros: I contacted them via the instructions here. Spoke to an actual person and he made it right. Shipped back to them just after Christmas and received today, 10 January. Pleasantly surprised. Thanks very much!

Cons: N/A

Pros: Good HTPC solution. Using Windows 7 and USB/E-net tuners to record and playback 1080i from cable and OTA. Low noise and runs cool... if you leave the cover off. Using 4GB of RAM and 80GB SSD drive. I like everything quiet so leaving the cover off is an acceptable solution for all of my PC's, if necessary. I have purchased a 12cm fan to add to the cover once the warranty runs out in a couple of months if I feel so inclined.

I love the size and quality of the product. My only disappointment with the computer WAS the inability to play HD Netflix.

USB 3.0 is great.

Cons: Netflix will not work via Windows 7 Media Center.

Noisy and hot with the cover on.

This model is very critical of the quality of HDMI cable (as others have noted). My "five for $6" cables that work fine for everything else will not work with this unit. I used a good quality locally purchased cable and it works perfectly.

Other Thoughts: Upgraded my three Foxconn Nettops (nt-510i w/GMA 3150, nt-330i with ION, and this NT-A3500) to Windows 8 and all of them play Netflix at HD with the Windows 8 Netlfix App. I actually use the lowest powered of the three (nt-510i) as my daily Netflix player. The NT-A3500 I gave to my in-laws as a Windows 8 "trainer" PC because it performed so well.

Pros: Small form factor, pretty powerful for its size, quiet

Cons: HDMI connection to my TV does not work, and the only way to get picture and sound is to use DVI-HDMI cable and separate audio connection (my laptop's HDMI to the same TV works perfectly). The whole point of buying this was to have a small, but capable HTPC. Without HDMI, it's barely useful.

Other Thoughts: Good idea, but mediocre product

Pros: I bought this to use as a HTPC and it has servered that purpose very well. Originally I could only get it to play 720p HD movies and below, but I recently discovered that I can play content up to 1080p 3D movies by using Windows Media Center. I had to use a fix to get WMC to play .mkv files, but once I did that, it plays movies great. I use a HomerunHD Prime with a cable card for TV, and Stream all of my movies over a gigabit network from my home server.

Cons: The biggest con I had was playing HD and 3D HD movies. 2 things that fixed this issue was running running cat 6 to the HTPC over my gigabit network instead of using the wireless and using windows media center to play these movies instead of VLC player or other media players. This has been stated in lots of other reviews, but the wireless on this unit never worked very well. Before running Cat 6 to it, I used a USB Wireless Dongle, but I receive much better peformance over a wired network.

Other Thoughts: I have mine set up with 4 gigs of ram and a 120 gig ssd. Since it's my primary Windows Media Center and has a smaller drive, I archive recorded TV to my home server running WHS 2011. This feature is built in to WHS 2011 and works well. I use an xbox 360 as a media center extender in our other room.