14 DAY TRIAL // While some companies are getting ready to reap what they sowed when they trumpeted the existence of a new gaming product or another, Foxconn went the more or less opposite route and made a new nettop.
Foxconn deals in a great many sorts of PC products and hardware components, and it looks like it brought forth its newest nettop.
For those that don't know, nettop defines very compact desktop systems with low-end specifications and intended for just basic tasks and, perhaps, multimedia.
In other words, they are the antithesis of such things as high-end, gaming-oriented PCs or notebooks.
As such, one could very well say that, in launching the NT-A3500 entry-level PC, Foxconn counterbalanced MSI's unveiling of the GX780 gaming notebook.
The new Foxconn system is built around the Brazos Fusion platform from Advanced Micro Devices, specifically the dual-core E-350 APU (accelerated processing unit).
Said APU has a core frequency of 1.6 GHz and the Radeon HD 6310 integrated graphics with DirectX 11 (though this doesn't matter much since high-end gaming is more or less out of the question).
The nettop, being a barebone, is equipped with just the minimum of components, but it does have a DDR3-1,600 slot.
With that to enable the addition of up to 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (random access memory), the system also has a 2.5-inch drive tray, for a HDD or SSD.
Other features include Gigabit Ethernet, a DVI port, an HDMI output, a 5-in-1 card reader and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi.
Finally, to allow buyers to use their fastest flash drives and external HDDs/SSDs/HHDs (hybrid hard drives) at top speeds, a pair of USB 3.0 connectors are available.
Sales of the Foxconn NT-A3500 barebone should commence next month. Until then, the full spec sheet can be found here.
“Using the full capabilities of the AMD APU has allowed Foxconn to build a Nettop with twice the performance of its predecessor, reduce power consumption and keep it all within our extremely popular ultra-small form factor,” said Stephen Ling, Managing Director for Foxconn, Western Europe.