ASRock's Ion 330-BD nettop gets reviewed
By Donald Melanson 
posted Jun 17th 2009 7:16PM
posted Jun 17th 2009 7:16PM
AsRock's Ion 330-BD nettop got a little lost among the twenty other Ion-based products that debuted at Computex, but the folks at TweakTown recently got a chance to spend a bit of one-on-one time with it, and they've now turned out an expectedly thorough review. As you can tell from the model name, one of the big selling points of this with this particular model is the built-in Blu-ray drive (it's also available without one), which TweakTown says feels right at home in the nettop, delivering "silky and smooth" playback with nary a hiccup. The rest of the nettop also seems to be more than up to par, with it delivering on its promise of quiet, low-power operation, and providing the performance you'd expect from the Ion / Atom combination. Better still, TweakTown says that the system can be easily overclocked to 2.1GHz without any apparent hit to stability. Hit up the link below for the complete rundown, including plenty of benchmarks and a closer look at the system itself (inside and out).
2.1GHz you say?
SOLD.
No, I think he said "ass rock". Lots of bass.
I'm kind of puzzled by why all these reviews exclude XBMC :(
because xbmc cannot make use of GPU decoding.
It can in Linux.
Seems like a stripped down version of media center would work just right
Tried mine with XBMC on ubuntu 9.04, GPU hardware decoding works on nvida cards. Possibly also 4*** ATI cards. Just write hdmi where it says sound device as a quick workaround for hdmi audio.
Does that mean its an Ion + Atom 330 combo?
Isn't that the same as the 12 inch netbook from DosPara we saw here a few days ago?
Looking good...
Come on down to $300 for the DVD+/-RW version and I'm sold. As it is, the lack of front-side USB and $400 price tag is a bit of a turn off.
That's exactly what i was thinking about
Get rid of the optical entirely and I'll think about it.
Considering you can build a similar HTPC for the same price, I think it's quite reasonable
super sexy but yea make it 100$ cheaper
Don't forget to include the $100 for a piece of Blu-Ray playback s/w - I didn't see that mentioned as being included (and I'd assume not given that there is no OS) in the review
"One thing that should be noted is that the ION 330-BD doesn't support HD audio pass-through for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, only regular DVD audio such as Dolby Digital 5.1 and others that use 640kbit rate audio. It will still playback these audio tracks on your Blu-ray discs, but compressed down"
No, but the chipset supports 7.1 multichannel LPCM over HDMI with software like PowerDVD 8.
Looks like a pretty capable machine, especially if the street price is lower than the msrp and the 2ghz overclock is no problem. I would run ubuntu on it though. Is there a way to play blu rays in Linux yet?
Sounds tempting to get.
I'm intending for me to get one of these for my grandma. Skype halfway across the world ftw!
I think the real question is will it be able to run Flash HD, I remember the AspireOne nettop was struggling quite a bit on one of the reviews.
Unlikely, but unfortunate they didn't try it, given that they were clearly focused on the possibility of using it as a Media Center PC. I guess people think that since it plays Blu-Ray movies it MUST be able to handle Flash...
If you look here:
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=602
you'll find Anand's attempt to get the Zotac Ion board, also using an Atom 330 and Ion, OC'ed to 1.92GHz to run HD flash at 720p and it basically could not.
Now this one runs at 2.1GHz, so it does leave you wondering...
I've been looking at HTPC's recently and if it keeps its £395 price tag n hits UK then I may pick up the Blu-Ray model of this. Its £90 more than a PS3, which would do the Blu-Ray n games n a workable browser, but for the extra you do get a full OS to play about with, even better if it runs some emulators, and it should support 100% of file types, PS3 suffers with a few.
You can install linux on a PS3, although there's no fixing the video format support problems.
This thing would be awesome home theatre pc. Throw in a wireless keyboard/mouse and would be perfect for a Mythbuntu Linux DVR. Dual boot with Win 7, chill on the couch and get sht done. Anyone agree?
Is it compatible with HD blu-ray Disc ?
Look closer at the picture…
Thanks for the 11 page article TweakTown. *sigh*
Hmm, starting on £253.99 (298.EUR or 415 USD) on eBay with a DVD drive and no operating system so hello XBMC !! Absolutely unbelievable. Too bad they have no SSD option cause I'd surely pay another 200 USD for it but I'll buy it as it is.
Sold.
I was going to shoot for the PCH c200.
But this is it. FINALLY and small form htpc!
Picked one up this afternoon. Putting Win 7 on it right now. So far I like the form factor, the noise (there is none) and the overall package.
Performance wise I think the 5400 RPM Hard Drive might be a bit of a dog, but we'll see.
It's going to be a media PC in my living room, and hopefully it'll run all my favorite emulators snappy enough to keep me amused.
Flash Playback, whatever. It's a bloated format if it takes a 2ghz CPU to run.
Grinch, congrat for the new HTPC! Could you tell me if the flash playing good on it? Do you have DTS on it as well? thanks...
AsRock Ion 330 NetTop test:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pctreiber.net%2Fartikel%2F52-sonstiges%2F396-asrock-ion-330-nettop
Did you say that $400 is to much?
Not when compared to fit-PC2 (1.6GHz Atom Z530, 160GB SATA, WiFi, WinXP, 1GB RAM......$399)
I was about to build a PC to hook up to my TV for watching online videos. This is exactly what I'm looking for and it won't be an eyesore in my living room. I look around and it's not being sold anywhere yet (except Ebay). What a tease! When will this thing be sold?
Considering it's the only one of it's kind currently, I don't think 400 is unreasonable. Sure you could wait until the knockoffs start coming out but you pay for being the first on the block with one!
Now it seems as if we are about to go full circle as people want the same kind of low-cost low-power feature implemented into their desktops, enter the ASRock Ion 330-BD Nettop.
http://www.pupuweb.com/blog/asrock-ion-330-bd-nettop-with-atom-processor/
Err.. that is what this article is all about.