Well living overseas is starting to cause support headaches for my parent's PCs and I would also like to have a very low power one running back in Aus to play with remotely from over here.

So I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with Mini PCs / Nettops / whatever you want to call them?

More specifically can anyone recommend cheap ones that they know are reliable (low power fanless designs would be highly desirable) or give advice on how Intel's Atom chips fare with regular Windows use?

Agree with TiT, I have 2 atoms and both are terribly slow, Asus EeePC and an Intel D525MW, Using the Asus EeePC just for a web browsing PC and the Intel is only being used as a burning box running Mint also hosts my Mp3 collection :P

maybe to kos, parents are a bit different than just random people - he might also have access to technology like telephone and internet which help people and computers communicate more easily when you live on the other side of the planet from them

1st generation atom, 1 gig of memory max and HDD is the fastest piece of hardware in the PC is 2 x corsair F60 SSD's, only because I upgraded to F240's.Try running Darktable/digicam or any photo editing software on it. Cmon compared to any i3 i5 i7 its slow as balls.
Alot of retirees on the cost here take photos and they all use some type of photo editing software.... if it be apature, photoshop or what ever. Hence I pointed out atoms are bad for this situation.
I myself love my atom for what it does but for kos prolly not the best idea.
If it was just for browsing (facebook/social networks) it would be fucking amazing.

it wasn't clear to me from the OP exactly what he wanted the minipc for, but I didn't get the impression it was to replace his parents pc cos he said "and I would also like to have a very low power one running back in Aus to play with remotely from over here." and his power requirements seemed to suggest he wouldn't be attempting anything remotely cpu-intensive

But anyway, I'm using a zotac zbox ID33BR as a media centre, it's got an atom D525 I think, with an ion GPU. It runs windows just fine and would easily do photoediting software which is going to be mostly memory-intensive for parents resizing/cropping pics or whatever. it's probably out-dated now

it has a fan though, but is super-quiet

Eorl there was a thread recently which touched on that http://www.ausgamers.com/forums/general/thread.php/3238101

the wdtv can map your windows share if that's what you mean eorl

maybe to kos, parents are a bit different than just random people - he might also have access to technology like telephone and internet which help people and computers communicate more easily when you live on the other side of the planet from them

But to expect someone on the other side of the planet to fix your problems is stupid and selfish and the typical bullshit guilt trip style of things that family would be expected to pull. Oh but we're different, we're family, we shouldn't have to pay someone to fix our fuckups because we're family, we're special.

I'm not saying you shouldn't help family but when it requires you to actually have to buy hardware to remotely operate their stuff, or to spend ages on the phone troubleshooting their issues I think it's quite selfish of them to expect him to go out of his way just because "lol family lol".

I had the same shit with my dad when he was alive. He'd constantly fuck up his computer because he either wouldn't listen to me because "I'm the dad I know best" or he'd randomly delete stuff "because I wanted more memory". After the 10th time I just gave up and told him to fuck off and I'm not fixing it anymore if he's going to keep breaking it because he didn't listen to a word I said.

Oops, sorry for the confusion and not being clear about what I actually want! I was just hoping for some general information cause I've never really looked at this form factor or these kinds of CPUs but yeah I am looking for:

- One for my parents that will handle browsing, word processing and some very basic photo editing/scanning and other basic Windows use. For this one a completely pre-built little system that could easily be sent back to the manufacturer under warranty would be ideal.

- One for myself to leave running, preferably the lowest power/noise (fanless) design possible while still being able to run full Linux or Win 7 if I want to put that on it, remote access, web browsing, and possibly torrenting.

I know that it's always going to be a trade-off between power consumption/heat and performance, but I get the impression that the Atom-based systems will probably do the job here for the basic needs.

Edit: For my parents I'm currently looking at the ASUS EB1503-B008E, I can get an open box from Newegg for $225 off.

But to expect someone on the other side of the planet to fix your problems is stupid and selfish and the typical bullshit guilt trip style of things that family would be expected to pull. Oh but we're different, we're family, we shouldn't have to pay someone to fix our fuckups because we're family, we're special.

your Dad is your project..

your Dad is your project..

sure, know someone who can talk to the dead?