Umm, how about an ASRock 330 for less money and get a dual core ATOM? This thing with a single core, ION or not, is too much money. The ASRock isn't quite as pretty but it works WELL and has HDMI onboard - it can be gotten with a BD drive too. Runs Liniux well and is serving me as an XBMC box on Ubuntu right now.
Why the emphasis on NewEgg? Given the chance they will jack the price to the Moon - the Intel I7 and Intel SSD are just two very good examples. Microcenter sells the I7 cheaper by far and I got the G2 SSD for $70 less elsewhere too. When I bought my ASrock they were $50 too high so I used Google to find another vendor. Shop around and check the BBB ratings before buying.
As for the BD - I didn't buy it and I don't want it. I rip my media to a NAS and play it back using XBMC on the ION with Linux as the OS. Video and audio both go over the HDMI. It looks great and I can play back anything without leaving the couch. On BD movies I only rip the movie itself and lose the menus\extras but I'm okay with that. I transcode it all to H.264 and compress it down by a few gigs too. Plays perfectly with just a little computing time spent doing it. Regular DVD are ripped to ISO and I retain everything except subs and languages I don't speak. :-) The ASRock is the perfect set top front-end just like this device would be if it had the better CPU in it....
The Triumph proved to be one of the better looking and performing pre-paid handsets we'd had the pleasure of holding in our sweaty mitts, but we had one major hangup: the name.
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Umm, how about an ASRock 330 for less money and get a dual core ATOM? This thing with a single core, ION or not, is too much money. The ASRock isn't quite as pretty but it works WELL and has HDMI onboard - it can be gotten with a BD drive too. Runs Liniux well and is serving me as an XBMC box on Ubuntu right now.
only problem bd version no where to be found. newegg just recently start selling the white version.
Why the emphasis on NewEgg? Given the chance they will jack the price to the Moon - the Intel I7 and Intel SSD are just two very good examples. Microcenter sells the I7 cheaper by far and I got the G2 SSD for $70 less elsewhere too. When I bought my ASrock they were $50 too high so I used Google to find another vendor. Shop around and check the BBB ratings before buying.
As for the BD - I didn't buy it and I don't want it. I rip my media to a NAS and play it back using XBMC on the ION with Linux as the OS. Video and audio both go over the HDMI. It looks great and I can play back anything without leaving the couch. On BD movies I only rip the movie itself and lose the menus\extras but I'm okay with that. I transcode it all to H.264 and compress it down by a few gigs too. Plays perfectly with just a little computing time spent doing it. Regular DVD are ripped to ISO and I retain everything except subs and languages I don't speak. :-) The ASRock is the perfect set top front-end just like this device would be if it had the better CPU in it....
(geez this comment system is hinky!)