This small form factor (SFF) PC is an ideal pick for an office environment and even for basic computing at home. Even light entertainment such as watching movies or light gaming will be fun, but expecting stupendous performance from an office PC is asking for too much. Most mainstream applications and Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium are easy to work with. Even some demanding designing suites will be manageable on this machine. Considering its target audience the design is sober yet attractive. It has an all-black body and a glossy front panel. The four USB ports and audio jacks in front, and the covered DVD writer give this mini tower a minimalist look. It's worth mentioning that nettops usually don't feature an optical drive, whereas this one does. There are eight USB ports (including the ones at the front), the serial and parallel ports take care of backward compatibility with older peripherals, and there's a VGA, a LAN port and audio jacks. Thanks to the provision, you can even add a PCI expansion card if need be.

The overall build quality of the ELl600 is quite good, but its weight doesn't make it readily portable. Nonetheless, what's best about it is that you can set it up in a matter of minutes. Just plug in the bundled mouse and keyboard, and connect your monitor to it, and you're set.

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Like most nettops, this one too is built around an Intel chipset-the Intel 945G and is powered by an Atom processor, except that this one has a more power efficient CPU, the Atom N230. There's 1 GB RAM and a 160 GB 3.5-inch hard drive as opposed to a 2.5-inch. So you'll get more value for money when upgrading the hard drive. Opening the case is very simple, and so is upgrading the RAM, hard drive and optical drive. Do note the warranty when opening PC cases.