Pros: Put this baby into a LIAN LI PC-Q08B case, plopped 4GB of DDR2 into it, 4 2TB HDD's, and set to work. Lets start off with the pro's. Easy setup: This thing was a breeze and worked flawlessly out of the box. Stand-alone ION2 GPU: This allowed for more efficient cooling, as the case I picked out mounts boards on the side instead of the floor and allows the GPU fan to suck cool air in from under the case. Quick: Dual-core 1.66ghz + hyperthreading makes for a nice HTPC board. Mine is running Ubuntu 11.04 + XBMC 10.1 "Passive" Cooling: Cooler parts last longer. That is a fact. Passively this thing runs cool to the touch, which is great. In my set-up though, I thought it best to go ahead and have my PSU fan (check out PSU mounting on the selected case) to draw from directly over the heatsink. This has kept everything nice and borderline room temperature, even under load, while maintaining a super quiet profile.

Cons: Now for the cons. 6 SATA ports? Pfft. There are 2 real SATA ports and the other 4 are -dedicated- to their RAID utility. It is setup via port replication on a third SATA connection, so pretty much you're stuck using these as RAID0/1/JBOD. Keep this in mind if you're planning on using more than 3 HDD's as individual drives. I was originally going to setup my HTPC with software RAID5, but had to settle with JBOD. This really bit me where the sun doesn't shine since it was undocumented. Speaking of SATA ports, the location is flat out idiotic. They are right next to the PCI Express x1 slot that the GPU is ment to occupy. This means that the heatsink on the GPU will either not sit in the slot correctly/firmly or it will crush any protruding SATA cables. One would think this could be corrected with 90 degree angled cables, but alas, all of these ports face the same direction. So if you put 90 degree cables in, they block access to the other 2 ports on the RAID chain.

Overall Review: I ended up putting the GPU in my PCI Express x16 slot since it was unoccupied to rectify the poor engineering on the SATA port locations. So not -too- irritating, unless I ever need that slot. If the top SATA row had been turned 180 degrees, this wouldn't be an issue at all. Remember that Zotac. Also, the built-in wifi is using the Aetheros chipset...can sometimes be buggy under Linux, but I knew that ahead of time. I am deducting 1 egg for the SATA stuff Zotac, everything else has worked flawlessly thus far. I almost deducted two because of the undocumented RAID stuff, but since I have recently found that you're working on a BIOS fix for allowing independent drive usage, I will let it slide this once.

Pros: Screen: Bright, sharp, clear, and beautiful. Keyboard: Very comfortable chiclet keyboard RAM: Fast and plenty of it CPU: Good for the price For $750 you can't really beat the hardware provided in this thing. It can handle many current games at high quality settings without a hitch. Also, the HDD comes with dual partitions, one for the OS and one for Data, this saved me a bit of time as I always do this anyways. I upgraded to this from an asus 1000he netbook which had a similar chiclet keyboard design, I am very happy to have a similar keyboard to be working with again. Sound: This thing is QUIET, I never hear the fan running and this thing stays cool.

Cons: HDD: Other variants of this model have 7200RPM, this one is only 5400RPM. It -is- noted on the product information and I was aware upon purchase, but the other two variants available on newegg sold out before I could get one. Bloatware: We all know that new prebuilt pc's come with bloatware. It's annoying and a pain. None of the bloatware was difficult to uninstall, but there sure was a bunch of it. Keyboard: Although I like the style of the keyboard and the chiclet design, I hate the way they styled and placed some of the keys. Page up/Page down are borderline miniature in the upper corner above the numpad side-by-side. There is only one function button, and the right control button is 2x larger than the left one. Insert and Delete are below the numpad in the bottom corner, a little non-intuitive.

Overall Review: All-in-all, if you're looking for a beast to handle many tasks ranging from surfing to light to medium gaming this puppy will handle it. The 540M GPU handles gaming pretty well, it's not shy. For the most part (OS graphics) by default use the intel gpu to save on power and is just as pretty. I give this two thumbs up and fully suggest you buy this!