Shuttle XS35GT-804 Intel NM10 1 x HDMI Barebone

Pros: I have been waiting for this lil guy for a long time and it finally got delivered yesterday. I swapped the 500gb hard drive for a SSD right away and installed Windows 7 Ultimate. It is freaky how quiet this thing is, the only way I knew it was on was the power light and the activity light. You can put your head up right next to it, and hear NOTHING. This is exactly what I wanted since I will use it to watch a lot of movies and my older HTPC's fans were on the quiet side but still annoying for horror movies that build suspense from silence. I am running the latest build of XBMC using hardware acceleration and it played all the mkv's I threw at it. Upgrading the hard drive to the SSD was easy, one screw on the case to take it apart and the hard drive was right there secured by 3 screws in a little casing.

Cons: It is sadly 10/100 LAN, not sure why this model is only fast ethernet while the other models without ION are gigabit. Doesn't bother me as I stream my movies to this box and the bitrate doesn't hit the 100mbit cap. The video bios screen before the POST screen says that the build is an 'engineering release - not for production'; I am hoping this doesn't cause problems or a BIOS update will correct it. The included CD does NOT include the ION drivers and the drivers on nvidia's website did not install. Luckily, Shuttle did have the driver on their website but it took a good 20 minutes to download as their site was slow.

Pros: Silent!!! Great Size plays everything I throw at it. Windows 7 with Boxee going to try XBMC next.

Cons: Wireless is off by default need to go into BIOS to turn it on. Upgrade to new BIOS.

Overall Review: Loving this machine!!!! I have it connected to 40" Samsung TV using Boxee to watch videos. It really is silent.

Pros: I want to make it known that this does have up to 7.1 (I use 5.1) surround sound over the HDMI connector. My receiver lights up with DTS and Dolby when playing my movies. I also streamed a few Bluray movies with no buffer issues at all on the 100mbit.

Cons: The LED light is a bright white and kind of annoying, it also flashes when in standby mode. I tried to see if i could unplug the LEDs inside but it didn't look easy to do and I was lazy :)

Pros: - Very low power consumption (about the same as a Compact Florescent Bulb) - Completely silent - Dual Core CPU - Dedicated video with 512mb VRAM - Handles 1080p video in x.264 using CoreAVC - Boxee friendly - Can handle source games on lower settings - Very small (about the size of a hard cover book) -Built in wireless

Cons: -Can not handle high end PC games, though this computer is not designed to -Software switch for the wireless (have to install special utility, not just a driver, to get it to work)

Overall Review: These computers are not designed for high end computing but that's just fine by me. If you are looking for a great computer to use for web browsing, watching videos, email, and word processing, you can not go wrong with this. It can handle everything your average computer user will though at it. Because it has dedicated video, this computer is going to last considerably longer than a machine with integrated graphics. If you are looking for a energy efficient PC for your parents or a Media Center PC for yourself, get this. There are other brands out there, but they are all designed and manufactured in mainland China. Shuttle is based out of Taiwan. Without going into too much detail, computers from Taiwanese companies tend to be of considerably higher quality than mainland China

Pros: Note: this review is based on using Ubuntu 10.10 - With latest XBMC releases, it runs 1080p video well with full 5.1 DTS/DD passthrough over HDMI - 720p works well with mplayer + smplayer frontend with VDPAU enabled - Can be setup for various methods of remote administration - Fits nicely behind my TV - Great personal server - Extremely quiet (especially hidden behind a TV that's over 9 ft away) - Have not had any issues with temperature in spite of passive cooling Tip: Those having issues should check out VDPAU enabled players/drivers/libraries (VDPAU = hardware video acceleration under Linux)

Cons: - In general, some of the configuration steps may not be friendly to the non-tech savvy user. If you plan to run Ubuntu, buyer beware! It may not be as fun as you plan-a quick search shows that the internal WIFI doesn't work without flashing the BIOS to 1.09. It may take some digging to find out how. - Also, Ubuntu's stock wireless drivers for this chipset still caused me major issues. Just wire it to your router and disable wireless for best results. Still want gigabit ethernet. - Issues getting sound to work well. There is lots of support out there for these issues, but not all of the proposed solutions fix the issues. - On the topic of audio, alsamixer and pulseaudio will haunt your dreams - Still had frame tearing while running 1080p with compiz effects running (solution: disable compiz effects, duh!) Tip: To get 5.1 DTS/DD passthough via HDMI in XBMC, try using "plughw:1,7" (without quotes) for both custom audio device and passthough device in XBMC system -> audio settings

Overall Review: After spending about a week and a half working on this machine, I have working with up-to-date BIOS, Ubuntu 10.10, upgraded Transmission with remote admin (legal torrents only, kids!), XBMC with an iPhone app and Rii mini keyboard/mouse for control, mplayer+smplayer+vdpau, VLC nightlies, working audio systemwide (5.1 DTS/DD in XBMC) However, the end result was well worth the effort and I look forward to future projects involving Apache, Samba, NAS, and more...

Pros: Small form factor, quiet, HDMI, surround sound, DVD -RW drive and 1080p streaming with no stutter. The setup was quick and easy.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: I'm running this machine stock (with the 2GB RAM and 500GB HD included). I have W7 loaded and am using a WHS for media streaming. I'm facing no issues. The 100Mbps nic isn't an issue; streaming doesn't need 1Gbps.

Pros: Enough power to run World of Warcraft on Lowest settings! And all with passive cooling! no fan noise! Your keyboard is louder that this computer!

Cons: NIC is only 100 mbit

Overall Review: Love it

Pros: I swapped out the hard drive for an small intel SSD for complete silence and to allow to run cooler. I don't play games or watch movies or any video intense applications. I needed a small light duty computer than was dead silent, cool, energy efficient. We used this in a medical office for electronic records. It had enough power to run the program and antivirus program at a very acceptable pace. Finally no noise and heat issues with a computer tucked in a cabinet. We even were able to turn off the cabinet fan! I don't miss that rumble from the cabinet.

Cons: Would have been better with 4 GB memory and I would have liked faster than 800 speed.

Overall Review: The SSD really helped this unit act like a "normal" desktop in terms of perceived speed. The processor is no speed demon but honestly the processor is not the bottleneck in most computers. For most usage I am extremely pleased. I'm picking up a couple more for the kids at home for internet use. Build in wireless is a plus (haven't tried yet)