For a reference, here is Laptop Mag's famous(?) yearly rating of laptop brands: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings
I'm very much interested in the same for mini PC and barebone manufacturers. It's much more of a niche market, so who else could do this, if not us? A 100-point scale, what Laptop Mag uses would be probably an overkill, a 5-scale would be probably best for our purposes, as different people rate differently, the 5-scale worked for Amazon, Newegg, TripAdvisor, etc. I'm not sure though if Laptop Mag's ratings are US-only or international, hopefully we are going to end up with a more international picture here.
Here's what the score should rate: brand reliability, product quality in general, drivers, updates, service, customer service, community support. Similarly to what Laptop Mag rates with notebook manufacturers, you get the idea. Try to rate the brand, not the individual product, not even the product line in question.
Some example mini PC, barebone manufacturers of interest come to my mind, the list is certainly not definitive, I encourage you to add yours!
Apple
ASRock
Asus
Dell
ECS
Gigabyte
Hystou
Intel
MSI
Shuttle
Zotac
I will certainly update this post later, but I'm not a mod, I'm not here every day, every week, not even every month! If there is interest, and possibility to do so on this forum, we could make it a sticky post, Wiki-post (meaning, not only me can edit it).
Following some tidbits from me on some brands.
Gigabyte: Browsing the Interwebs I had the sense Gigabyte BRIX might be cool. Here is their current base BRIX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164031
Of the 3 reviewers, even though 2 gave it 5 eggs, the one fair review giving 2 eggs by Harold W. titled Not for non-techs seems instructive to me, addressing the very issues I'm asking for you to rate: no drivers, no support, not even a community support forum.
Zotac: Zotac markets itself as The original mini PC company (something like that). It might be a good one, who knows, but one member here on Anandtech Forum I remember reading had a very negative view on the brand. Sure, it's just one man's opinion, that's exactly how much does it worth, but still. I read it here.
Addendum: internal PSUs! An internal PSU has certainly nothing to do with the reliability and service offered by a brand, but I'm fixated on the idea! Does any of the mini PC, barebone manufacturers, besides Apple, offer models with an internal power supply? Why not? Is it so difficult to pull it off, or simply no one cares? The iFixit Teardown of the Mac Mini shows basically it has something not very much dissimilar from a notebook power brick inside the chassis, so other manufacturers can do this, too, if they want it, instead of supplying an external notebook PSU.
On the non-barebone, side, you have picoPSUs for mini-ITX: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f
But mini-ITX is huge, the single, smaller mini-STX offer from ASRock has the usual notebook-style, external PSU: http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/deskmini 110 Series/
Barebones on the other hand are cheaper, smaller, more suitable for my needs. I'm torn.
I'm very much interested in the same for mini PC and barebone manufacturers. It's much more of a niche market, so who else could do this, if not us? A 100-point scale, what Laptop Mag uses would be probably an overkill, a 5-scale would be probably best for our purposes, as different people rate differently, the 5-scale worked for Amazon, Newegg, TripAdvisor, etc. I'm not sure though if Laptop Mag's ratings are US-only or international, hopefully we are going to end up with a more international picture here.
Here's what the score should rate: brand reliability, product quality in general, drivers, updates, service, customer service, community support. Similarly to what Laptop Mag rates with notebook manufacturers, you get the idea. Try to rate the brand, not the individual product, not even the product line in question.
Some example mini PC, barebone manufacturers of interest come to my mind, the list is certainly not definitive, I encourage you to add yours!
Apple
ASRock
Asus
Dell
ECS
Gigabyte
Hystou
Intel
MSI
Shuttle
Zotac
I will certainly update this post later, but I'm not a mod, I'm not here every day, every week, not even every month! If there is interest, and possibility to do so on this forum, we could make it a sticky post, Wiki-post (meaning, not only me can edit it).
Following some tidbits from me on some brands.
Gigabyte: Browsing the Interwebs I had the sense Gigabyte BRIX might be cool. Here is their current base BRIX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164031
Of the 3 reviewers, even though 2 gave it 5 eggs, the one fair review giving 2 eggs by Harold W. titled Not for non-techs seems instructive to me, addressing the very issues I'm asking for you to rate: no drivers, no support, not even a community support forum.
Zotac: Zotac markets itself as The original mini PC company (something like that). It might be a good one, who knows, but one member here on Anandtech Forum I remember reading had a very negative view on the brand. Sure, it's just one man's opinion, that's exactly how much does it worth, but still. I read it here.
Addendum: internal PSUs! An internal PSU has certainly nothing to do with the reliability and service offered by a brand, but I'm fixated on the idea! Does any of the mini PC, barebone manufacturers, besides Apple, offer models with an internal power supply? Why not? Is it so difficult to pull it off, or simply no one cares? The iFixit Teardown of the Mac Mini shows basically it has something not very much dissimilar from a notebook power brick inside the chassis, so other manufacturers can do this, too, if they want it, instead of supplying an external notebook PSU.
On the non-barebone, side, you have picoPSUs for mini-ITX: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f
But mini-ITX is huge, the single, smaller mini-STX offer from ASRock has the usual notebook-style, external PSU: http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/deskmini 110 Series/
Barebones on the other hand are cheaper, smaller, more suitable for my needs. I'm torn.