ASRock ION 330HT-BD Blu-ray NetTop

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ASRock ION 330HT-BD Blu-ray NetTop

Back in July of last year we were one of the first to review the ASRock NetTop ION 330, which was the first Atom-based "nettop" computer from this budget manufacturer that worked in conjunction with Pegatron Corp to assemble this compact computer. The original ASRock NetTop ION 330 worked out quite well and packed reasonable hardware (a dual-core Atom with NVIDIA ION graphics), but the latest computer in this series from ASRock is the ION 330HT-BD. This new nettop computer, which we are reviewing today under Linux, comes complete with a Blu-ray player along with 802.11 g/n WiFi, EuP 2.0 certification, and an MCE remote controller.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14496

[droidhacker]

Now if they would just switch to AMD and put in a moderately sized SSD instead of that super-low-performance 2.5" magnetic whirly-whirly, then I might be moderately interested.

Until then, better off just using an old laptop.

[movieman]

Back in the real world, the biggest flaw is that the IP Barons won't let Linux play my Blu-Ray movies... otherwise I'd seriously consider this for a new MythTV frontend.

[mgc8]

Back in the real world, the biggest flaw is that the IP Barons won't let Linux play my Blu-Ray movies... otherwise I'd seriously consider this for a new MythTV frontend.

Related to this, does anyone know whether there are any hardware differences (even minor) between this model (ION330HT-BD) and the one without BluRay (ION330HT), since I'd much rather purchase that one if the hardware is the same minus BD player?... I am especially interesed in the WiFi, this one has a nice Atheros chipset, and I am wary of the alternatives like Ralink with poor Linux support. Somehow though the price delta is quite large (around 100? where I live) so I think there must be more than just an optical drive :-/