The Giada MiniPC A50 ($449 street) is the first AMD Fusion-equipped nettop that we've reviewed here at PCMag Labs. It's definitely geared toward video enthusiasts and others that want to display their digital life on their HDTV. It hooks up via an HDMI port, and has a power-saving integrated CPU/GPU that can display 1080p HD video streams smoothly. It even has a speedy hard drive in case you're the type who creates videos as well. The MiniPC A50 is a little light in the accessory department, but if you want a base nettop with plenty of forward-looking technology, keep the A50 on your shopping list.

Design and Features
The A50 is a diminutive nettop, similar to last year's Polywell Giada ION-100 ($449 street, 3 stars). The system is a tiny 6 by 1 by 7.5 inches (HWD), which means that it's (much) smaller than your average hardcover novel. It's a smidge bigger when you clip on the included stand, but even with the clear stand attached the A50 can almost disappear on a desktop. Though a VESA mount isn't included, the system is so small that you could almost attach the A50 to the back of a 42-inch or larger HDTV with a few inches of double-stick tape. There's a little fan noise up close, but the A50 is virtually silent from more than 2 to 3 feet away.

In terms of design, the nettop is fairly clean on the outside: The majority of the ports are on the back, including four USB 2.0 ports, VGA, power, and a HDMI port for connecting the A50 up to an HDTV. Under a door on the top are the system's single USB 3.0 port, audio (incorporating a digital audio out port), and multimedia card reader. The system has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, so you can easily connect the A50 to your home's wireless network. These ports and connectors are essentially all you need for a compact home PC.

The AMD Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) is, essentially, an "all-in-one" processor/GPU hybrid. It consists of a low-powered CPU and a DX11-compatible GPU on one die. This hybrid improves communication between the processor and the graphics, while keeping power consumption low (since the PC doesn't have to power two sets of chips). AMD Fusion is designed more for video/HD acceleration rather than 3D prowess, and it shows in the numbers seen below. The A50 with AMD Fusion is certainly capable of displaying 1080p HD video from online streams, local files, and Blu-ray (if you hook up an external Blu-ray drive and install viewing software).

The A50 claims to use less than 30W of operating power, and we proved that to be true with our trusty PS3 International Kill-A-Watt meter. Even while running benchmark tests, the Kill-A-Watt readings hovered in the mid 20W range. I liked that the A50 clocked down to the low to mid teens while sitting idle: first-generation nettops pretty much stayed at maximum power usage, even if that power usage was in the 30-40W range. One thing the system didn't come burdened with was bloatware. Aside from a customized Giada PC theme, the A50 was pretty much standard Windows 7 and AMD/ATI drivers. This is good, since it means that most of the 320GB hard drive is free. The nettop comes pretty barebones: The stand and Windows 7 disc are it for extras. There's no keyboard or mouse included, and you'll have to provide your own optical drive if you plan on watching DVD or Blu-ray movies on the A50.

Performance
The Giada MiniPC A50's great energy usage means a mixed bag on the performance front. The system's AMD E-350 APU is perfectly usable when decoding HD video streams smoothly. I had no trouble watching streaming online 1080p HD videos. But the system slowed down to a crawl when performing some multimedia creation tasks. The A50 was decent at our Handbrake video encoding test, completing it in 9 minutes 18 seconds. That's significantly faster than other nettops we've tested with Intel Atom processors, like the Asus Eee Box EB1501P-B016E ($499.99 list, 3.5 stars), which took 11:20, and Lenovo IdeaCentre Q150 ($399 direct, 4 stars), which took 12:31. I'm sure the A50's 7,200rpm drive helped during the video transcoding (the Lenovo Q150and Asus EB1501P used 5,400rpm drives). On our Adobe Photoshop CS5 test the A50 scored 33:02, which was far, far behind the Asus EB1501P (19:17) and Lenovo AQ150 (23:38). Historically, Intel CPUs have done better than AMD ones at the CS5 test when both CPUs are in the same category. This, of course, only applies to people who wish to delve into photo editing on their PCs: Viewing photos on the A50 was fine in Windows Media Center and on websites like Flickr and Cooliris. As on other nettops, the A50's gaming performance was on the low end, but unlike most Nvidia ION-powered nettops, the A50 could at least run our DX11-based Lost Planet 2 test (albeit with single-digit fps rates). If DX11 comes to casual gaming, you'll at least be covered.

Compared with the others nettops, the Giada MiniPC A50 is a solid offering. Its AMD Fusion architecture gives the nettop decent video performance for very little energy use. However, for only $50 more, the Asus EeeBox EB1501P has an internal DVD burner and wireless keyboard and mouse included. The Asus is quite a bit larger, but included a VESA mounting bracket that lets you put the system behind a large monitor or HDTV. The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q150 holds on to its Editors' Choice for nettops, since it's $51 cheaper than the A50 and is an even more compact system with a larger 500GB hard drive, and a wired keyboard and mouse bundled in.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
Check out the test scores for the Giada MiniPC A50

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Giada MiniPC A50 with several other desktops side by side.

More desktop reviews: