If you’re not totally restricting yourself to a PC maybe the Apple TV is something else to throw in to the mix? Apple - Apple TV If you want to acquire your Movies / TV legally and store them digitally it’s a good place for a beginner to start.
Got a Mac Mini years ago, Core 2 Duo and smaller than an ASRock, bloody expensive though ;( But thats the price you pay for Apple. I think theres two very valid points in this debate, A prebuilt one has the advantage of smaller size but less customization, but a build your one allows more customization and perhaps even a better price point as you can buy what you want. The size difference between a Mini-ATX case and a prebuilt is different (prebuilt usually being smaller), but both are still massively smaller than a normal PC case so unless the size savings are important to you in that scale a prebuilt one may not be the best solution. Its all down to what people want, I myself would most likely go with a prebuilt one, but if I had the money and time I would like to build a really powerful small PC. I also assume power wise, the biggest drain on power is the motherboard, cpu and gpu. Now having an Ion, Atom and mini motherboard which is in both the prebuilt and custom made should make both around a similar power level I assume, but I am open to corrections if people wish to do so as I am not an expert in this field. The definition of nettop however is pointless, espically quoting wikipedia. Dell classed there 12" and 14" laptops as netbooks, now in my mind I wouldnt class them as such. The definition isnt set in stone and it constantly changes with the market. Now why dont you all call down and keep talking about the options.
Indeed I do agree very well put, Nothing wrong with a little debate too! If Trebor is not specifically after a Nettop sized / styled computer another direction to look in is home theatre pc’s (htpc’s / media pc’s) depending on the case you get these can look exactly like DVD / Bluray players and even have lcd screens. Could be another thing to look in to if you want everything to integrate nice with the rest of your audio / video equipment. Cases range from Nettop size to full size pc towers so you could really do whatever you wanted.
I've looked at media PC's but they are too expensive. I want something small, cheap and cheerful that can handle the requirements I made in my first post. Shuttle and Nettop PC's will do me fine. Just got to save some money and think beforehand about which direction is best to take. Thanks for all the discussion and suggestions so far guys. I'll let you know how I get on.
What did you go for in the end? I want a MacMini / Apple TV but I would have to run Windows to playback Blueray so it would be kind of pointless paying extra for a Mac Im thinking about the Asrock as its small like the MacMini, it can also be hacked to run OSX.
I went for the ASrock It came on Monday, will have to set it up this weekend as I'm very busy at the moment. Looks like a great piece of kit. I'll let you know how I get on with it!
I was speaking with InsaneNutter yesterday and I think I am going to get an ASRock as well. Perhaps the one that you went with Trebor because I too want the Blu-ray drive.
I may just get the ASRock InsaneNutter has because since I have the PS3, I don't really need the blu-ray drive on the nettop.
Acer Aspire Revo Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer Same hardware, but with a smaller hard drive and no optical drive.
It’s has the single core atom processor which doesn’t support 64bit and a gig less of ram which helps get the price down a bit more. If i wanted to replace my modded xbox the revo is perfect and more than capable of 1080p video playback when running the XMBC linux port. I would get a remote for it and hide it behind the telly