Foxconn Nettop NT535 review

Off-the-shelf nettops usually have the same basic specification, with an Intel Atom processor, a small hard disk and 2GB of memory. However, barebones kits such as Foxconn’s NT535 leave you room for a bit more customisation. It still has a modest 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 processor, but at least you can add as large a hard disk as you want and up to 4GB of RAM.

Building it should be a simple proposal – all you have to do is slot a laptop memory module into place and put a 2.5in SATA hard disk into a caddy, and there aren’t even any cables to route. However, the NT535 is remarkably difficult to open, particularly if you want to avoid scratching its glossy exterior. We had to resort to using a couple of thin flat-head screwdrivers to lever the removable side away – hardly convenient, and definitely intimidating for anyone who isn’t happy with the idea of applying force to their hardware.

The Nettop NT535 is certainly compact. It looks similar to Asus’s EEEBox and comes with a VESA mount that lets you attach it to the back of a TV or monitor – perfect if you want to use it as a media centre PC. It’s well equipped with ports including an HDMI output and a 3.5mm stereo line output that doubles as an optical S/PDIF. This gives you some flexibility if you want to connect it to a set of surround sound speakers. There’s also a headphone output and a surprisingly loud and clear built-in speaker.

Unfortunately, video doesn’t work as smoothly as we’d have liked. The laptop has a maximum resolution of 1,920×1,080 (Full HD) via HDMI, although the VGA output is limited to a resolution of 1,366×768. However, we were only able to play 720p video smoothly, while our H.264 encoded 1080p test files dropped frames as they played.

Unsurprisingly for such a compact PC, the nettop lacks an optical drive bay. However, there are plenty of USB ports – two on the front and four on the back – which you can use to connect an external one. There’s also a memory card reader which can handle MMC, Memory Stick PRO, SD and the high-capacity SDHC card formats, making it easy to view photos or video recorded on most digital cameras. If you’d rather store your data and media elsewhere on your network, you’re still in luck. The NT535 has a Gigabit Ethernet port and built-in 802.11n wireless networking, so you’ll be able to access content stored on NAS devices, other PCs or just easily stream media from the internet without having to worry about running a cable to the NT535.

For our tests, we set up the Nettop with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 2GB of RAM and a 60GB hard disk. Its performance in our tests reflected its modest processor, with an Overall score of 22 (compared to our benchmark score of 100 for a fast PC based on an Intel Core i5-2500K processor). Its best performance was in our image-editing test, and it managed a slow but steady performance in our video-encoding test. However, multitasking in particular is a weak point. If you like to have a dozen applications or scores of browser tabs open at the same time, this is not the ideal PC for you. Unsurprisingly, its gaming performance is also limited. You won’t have any trouble with the odd round of Bejewelled, but Call of Duty 4, our benchmark 3D game, wouldn’t even run.

Although the NT535 looks good and is easy to mount on a monitor or TV, it failed to win us over. It’s difficult to open and its performance is underwhelming. Despite its Full HD resolution and HDMI port, it’s not up to playing 1080p video files, which makes it a poor choice for a media centre PC. It’s good enough for the same basic email and simple browsing tasks that any netbook or nettop is built for, but the Atom processor is getting on a bit. We’ve seen some great performance from AMD’s Fusion platform, such as in the Asus E35M1-I, so we’d pick a Fusion-based nettop over the current generation of Atom-based models.