Introduction

Mini desktop computers or "nettops" as they are called in the industry were one of the hit products for 2008 and the momentium has not slowed down in 2009 either.

Nettops were innovatively a result of netbook computers. Once Intel launched its low-cost and low-power Atom processor onto the market last year, which saw brilliant results, Acer and ASUS were furst up selling them like hot cakes, and then others followed with also good success.

Not too long after, the nettop computer system entered the fray - it took the same principles and concepts of the small and affordable netbook to the desktop. These new style of desktop computers were never going to get any awards for performance, but they performed well enough as a student PC or basic office system for the price and hence left off where the netbooks started - and sold well, too.

NVIDIA wisely and smartly noticed an area in where it could get its nose in on the action and create a chip for netbook and nettops systems, which would provide a solid boost in performance in two important areas, where these systems didn't enjoy the best of numbers - HD movie playback and basic gaming. Try and playback a 1080p movie or get in some basic gaming action on one of the latest titles and your little system all of a sudden didn't look all that good anymore. On came the NVIDIA Ion chipset (the GeForce 9400M, to be exact) and it added an important kick up in the performance stakes by replacing the suitable, but not desireable Intel onboard graphics.

Companies such as ASUS and ASRock are familiar to us for creating nettop systems with the NVIDIA Ion chip, but a new one that we hadn't heard of until today is Giada. Today we get a look at its Slim-N10 Ion nettop, which just happens to be the smallest computer system we've ever tested. Continue on with us as we get a really close look outside and inside the system and see if it is worth buying or not.