HABEY intros Atom N270-powered mini HTPC, makes it crunch 1080p

An Atom N270-powered rig that can handle 1080p content? Say it ain't so! The relatively unknown HABEY has stepped forward with a minuscule media PC that includes a fairly weak CPU and a potent hardware decoder that can supposedly handle 1080p content and even Blu-ray flicks. The BIS-6550HD is meant to be one of the most energy efficient machines on the planet to adequately play back 1080p material, with the entire system sucking down under 13 watts. Complementing the 1.6GHz processor is a single SODIMM slot for carrying up to 2GB of RAM, wireless / HDTV tuner options, a slew of video outputs, multicard reader, gigabit Ethernet and four USB 2.0 sockets. Unfortunately, pricing and availability both remain undisclosed, but we get the feeling you'll be paying dearly for the chance to see 1080p sans stutter on a machine this tiny.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 9:54AM]

Is it just me or does that picture look like someone had a little too much fun putting ports/antennas on a box in Photoshop?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 11:14AM]

Normally I ignore all the chop comments, but on this one it's terrible.

I mean at least they could have mirrored the antenna. The VGA connector and the digital coax connector could use some work. Other than that it would have almost been believable.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 6:11PM]

That is, by a wide margin, the worst Photochop job I have seen so far in 2009. WOW that's bad!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 10:01AM]

I'm hoping this is just the ultimate, small cheap media extender for playing music, video(MPEG2, DivX, H.264, VC1/WMV, AMV, Quicktime, etc.) and other random media from a network share. Too bad it lacks component outputs for older HDTV's!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 12:37PM]

All's a HTPC like this needs it the Hauppauge HD PVR... ( avchd-usb video capture device )...and one could record all their premium HDTV
and HD Movies for permanent archiving and playback !! How sweet it is;)

Cheers, -RT

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 12:52PM]

So how will this compare to the similarly-sized but presumably much cheaper Eee Box 204/206 with an integrated Radeon HD 3450?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 12:57PM]

Hmm, another limited to L4.1 @ 40Mbps device... LAME. And if it is using a N270+945GSE, what is doing the HD decoding?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 3:47PM]

Or how does it compare with buying a 540s from the Dell Outlet (when you can find them) with blu-ray drive Radeon HD 3450 and Windows Vista Premium for about $400 after 20% coupon. (okay so this is just what I bought a couple of weeks ago and it rocks as an HTPC!) :)

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 2:10PM]

A Broadcom Chip in a Mini-PCI card is doing all the decoding... as will be the case with most Netbooks that have HD decoding.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 11th 2009 3:04PM]

I like the Nvidia Ion better. It will have more USB ports + DVI + eSATA.