Have You Heard Of These?

[Smallwheels]

Have you heard of the Xi3 computers?

http://www.xi3.com/

The reason I was attracted to the Mac Mini in the first place was the small size. It was a good computer with a good level of performance. I've hoped that other manufacturers would create something similar. Acer and others have made small form factor machines but they only had netbook level components. A few months ago I learned of a company in Europe that made small machines but they weren't sold in the USA.

This Xi3 company is a US entity and the machines are made here. They have custom mother boards that are divided into sections so that different components can be upgraded separately without needing to replace the entire board. They can be configured in many ways with many custom options. To see how it works look at their Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/xi3corp .

The Xi3 web site isn't as user friendly when it comes to creating your own machine as the Apple or HP sites. Calling the company to place an order would probably be easier.

I contacted them because I didn't see any WiFi or Bluetooth options. They said that because much of their sales are with government entities they don't add wireless connectivity. They do however have internal USB connectors for aftermarket dongles for wireless connections.

What do you think? Is this company a real contender for competing with the Mac Mini? Their machines certainly have great features and look really cool with many color options.

Smallwheels

[Smallwheels]

I tried the Youtube channel link in the post and it leads to a 404 page. Yet when I go to that link in a browser it works. You can get there easily by typing the link.

[Smithcraft]

It certainly looks interesting.

I'd like to see an Intel CPU and a regular HDD option.

SC

ps - You get a 404 error because you included the period in the URL. If you leave it off, or move it a space, it should work.
_________________
Grumpy old man of computing.

[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

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[Brendan]

[marv777]