December 16, 2013 at 10:16Foxconn nanoPC AT-7300 nettop review on Intel Core i3-3217U processor
The sizes of displays are steadily growing, and the dimensions of devices without it tend to decrease. Even gaming computers strive for the mini-ITX format, and office solutions need to be even smaller. Once upon a time there were nettops on the Atoms, not the fastest, and even unsympathetic computers. With the advent of an ultra-low power processor, read ultrabook processors, the possibilities of engineers have come close to infinite. I have already tested on OCCLub.ru a solution from Intel - NUC and from Gigabyte - BRIX. Both nettops were based on Intel Core i3 and had extremely small dimensions, but at the same time were not without some flaws. The device from Foxconn is based on the same processor, larger in size, but has significant advantages in the field of expansion. Under the cut - Foxconn AT-7300 nettop preparation.
The packaging is very reminiscent of ... of course, Apple. Well, how could it be otherwise) And the silver version of the nettop is painted on the box, and the black (most popular in production) color is depicted on the plastic belt around the box. Outside, op-pa, apple style!
Inside, deja vu continues, see what a cute little case, pulling the tongue of which you can get the device entirely out of the box. Nettop, still black, so I won’t say anything here.
Raise the already empty top section. Inside, there is a stand for vertical installation, a power adapter, a power cable, a sticker, a set of screws and (lo and behold!) A USB flash drive with drivers - this is unrealistic; finally, vendors have stopped applying driver disks to devices without a DVD drive.
We raise another section, although, it would seem, there is nowhere below, and we find VESA mounts there. Here, perhaps, is all that is needed for a compact computer.
Chased in appearance: Stylish, brushed aluminum, cool, only a little too big. The rest is amazing.
The front panel contains: a power button (round, silver with an integrated LED), a speaker grill (nettop sings independently, without connecting to speakers), two USB 3.0 ports, an MS / SD / SDHC / MMC card reader, a microphone jack and a headphone jack. Nothing more, but you can’t say that something is missing.
The upper and lower sides are reserved for ventilation, the side panels are solid, you can, of course, talk about their sizes or count the number of scratches, and also specify at what distance from the edge of the platform there are bolts for the Ph00 screwdriver, but I will leave these troubles to more severe editions.
The back panel is the most delicious: there are 4 USB ports (2 - USB 3.0), a DVI connector, an HDMI connector, a LAN port, a speaker jack and a port for a power adapter. A bunch of wires that can be connected should not scare an experienced user, in fact you need to understand that in addition to the HDMI cable and the power cable, something is unlikely to be needed. The adapter for connecting a wireless mouse and keyboard will be completely invisible, you can transmit both sound and image via an HDMI cable, well, you just have not yet learned how to do without a power cable.
Outwardly - of course, they climbed inside. The cover with four bolts allows you to remove ... the opposite wall))).
The black PCB board contains a lot of interesting connectors: two SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM slots, a full-size mini PCI-E, and a whole design for installing a SATA hard drive.
On the reverse side of the board is a central processor with an installed cooling system and a half-size mini PCI-E slot, occupied by a Wi-Fi adapter.
Structurally, the computer is no different from the Intel NUC and Gigabyte Brix, with the exception of full-fledged SATA, which means more data storage, but lower transfer speed.
Let's go see what's inside.
The processor is well known for a long time - it is Intel Core i3-3217U
Low power consumption, two cores, four threads.
RAM - 4 gigabytes of one bar, you can install two modules of 8 gigabytes - a total of up to 16 gigabytes.
The Intel Centrino 2200 Wireless Adapter supports the 802.11n standard
500 Gigabyte hard drive, a standard 9.5 mm thick SATA drive. You can install disks with a capacity of up to 1 TB or a solid-state drive.
In the mini PCI-E connector, I tried to install an mSATA solid-state drive (32 gigabytes from Sandisk and 80 gigabytes from Intel), but they were not determined. This will most likely be fixed in the second generation of nettops.
Working with memory is not the strongest side of the configuration, but I remind you that I installed only one memory module - in dual-channel mode, everything will be much better.
Favorite test - evaluation of Windows 7 - considers the weakest point of the graphics subsystem.
The speed of the hard drive is certainly lower than that of a solid state drive.
The comprehensive PC Mark 7 test says that the hard drive is almost twice as bad, but is it worth sacrificing a lot of storage for this figure? The question is not trivial.
Another set of PC Mark 8 says that a score of 2410 points is acceptable for office computers.
The graphics subsystem - Intel HD Graphics 4000 - can spin toys 4-5 years ago without any problems - and the legendary Half-Life 2 just flies at maximum settings.
The temperature conditions of the Foxconn nanoPC AT-7300 are quite acceptable. The maximum central temperature was 73 degrees - compared with the Intel NUC - a cool breeze ...
To summarize: an excellent compact nettop based on a modern and powerful enough Intel Core i3 processor. There are a lot of scenarios for using the device - from a small desktop for an office to a media center with a hard drive of 1 terabyte. I would prefer this option: a home computer for surfing the Internet and communicating on social networks with the ability to play casual games. Well, if you have directly set hands, or you are clearly following the instructions - put Hackintosh and here it is McMini =)
The packaging is very reminiscent of ... of course, Apple. Well, how could it be otherwise) And the silver version of the nettop is painted on the box, and the black (most popular in production) color is depicted on the plastic belt around the box. Outside, op-pa, apple style!
Inside, deja vu continues, see what a cute little case, pulling the tongue of which you can get the device entirely out of the box. Nettop, still black, so I won’t say anything here.
Raise the already empty top section. Inside, there is a stand for vertical installation, a power adapter, a power cable, a sticker, a set of screws and (lo and behold!) A USB flash drive with drivers - this is unrealistic; finally, vendors have stopped applying driver disks to devices without a DVD drive.
We raise another section, although, it would seem, there is nowhere below, and we find VESA mounts there. Here, perhaps, is all that is needed for a compact computer.
Chased in appearance: Stylish, brushed aluminum, cool, only a little too big. The rest is amazing.
The front panel contains: a power button (round, silver with an integrated LED), a speaker grill (nettop sings independently, without connecting to speakers), two USB 3.0 ports, an MS / SD / SDHC / MMC card reader, a microphone jack and a headphone jack. Nothing more, but you can’t say that something is missing.
The upper and lower sides are reserved for ventilation, the side panels are solid, you can, of course, talk about their sizes or count the number of scratches, and also specify at what distance from the edge of the platform there are bolts for the Ph00 screwdriver, but I will leave these troubles to more severe editions.
The back panel is the most delicious: there are 4 USB ports (2 - USB 3.0), a DVI connector, an HDMI connector, a LAN port, a speaker jack and a port for a power adapter. A bunch of wires that can be connected should not scare an experienced user, in fact you need to understand that in addition to the HDMI cable and the power cable, something is unlikely to be needed. The adapter for connecting a wireless mouse and keyboard will be completely invisible, you can transmit both sound and image via an HDMI cable, well, you just have not yet learned how to do without a power cable.
Outwardly - of course, they climbed inside. The cover with four bolts allows you to remove ... the opposite wall))).
The black PCB board contains a lot of interesting connectors: two SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM slots, a full-size mini PCI-E, and a whole design for installing a SATA hard drive.
On the reverse side of the board is a central processor with an installed cooling system and a half-size mini PCI-E slot, occupied by a Wi-Fi adapter.
Structurally, the computer is no different from the Intel NUC and Gigabyte Brix, with the exception of full-fledged SATA, which means more data storage, but lower transfer speed.
Let's go see what's inside.
The processor is well known for a long time - it is Intel Core i3-3217U
Low power consumption, two cores, four threads.
RAM - 4 gigabytes of one bar, you can install two modules of 8 gigabytes - a total of up to 16 gigabytes.
The Intel Centrino 2200 Wireless Adapter supports the 802.11n standard
500 Gigabyte hard drive, a standard 9.5 mm thick SATA drive. You can install disks with a capacity of up to 1 TB or a solid-state drive.
In the mini PCI-E connector, I tried to install an mSATA solid-state drive (32 gigabytes from Sandisk and 80 gigabytes from Intel), but they were not determined. This will most likely be fixed in the second generation of nettops.
Working with memory is not the strongest side of the configuration, but I remind you that I installed only one memory module - in dual-channel mode, everything will be much better.
Favorite test - evaluation of Windows 7 - considers the weakest point of the graphics subsystem.
The speed of the hard drive is certainly lower than that of a solid state drive.
The comprehensive PC Mark 7 test says that the hard drive is almost twice as bad, but is it worth sacrificing a lot of storage for this figure? The question is not trivial.
Another set of PC Mark 8 says that a score of 2410 points is acceptable for office computers.
The graphics subsystem - Intel HD Graphics 4000 - can spin toys 4-5 years ago without any problems - and the legendary Half-Life 2 just flies at maximum settings.
The temperature conditions of the Foxconn nanoPC AT-7300 are quite acceptable. The maximum central temperature was 73 degrees - compared with the Intel NUC - a cool breeze ...
To summarize: an excellent compact nettop based on a modern and powerful enough Intel Core i3 processor. There are a lot of scenarios for using the device - from a small desktop for an office to a media center with a hard drive of 1 terabyte. I would prefer this option: a home computer for surfing the Internet and communicating on social networks with the ability to play casual games. Well, if you have directly set hands, or you are clearly following the instructions - put Hackintosh and here it is McMini =)