Although it's best known as an AMD AIB partner, Sapphire has been branching out a bit lately. First came motherboards based on Intel's P67 platform, and now the company is going after the more mainstream user with a new line of 'lifestyle' PCs.
The first member of the new family is the EDGE-HD Mini PC, and it certainly lives up to the 'mini' part of its name. The manufacturer claims that this is the smallest PC in the world, and at less than half a litre in total volume, we'd be hard-pressed to argue. The actual dimensions are 19.3cm x 14.8cm x 2.2cm, and it tips the scales at just 530g.
Even so, the EDGE-HD is quite well equipped for its size. The grunt work is carried out by a 1.66Ghz dual-core Intel Atom D510 paired up with 2GB RAM and a 512MB NVIDIA ION 2 GPU, while storage is taken care of by a 250GB hard drive. These specs are nothing too special, but they should be more than enough for general desktop tasks or even a bit of light gaming.
There are plenty of connectivity options too, with 802.11n WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, VGA, HDMI and a quartet of USB 2.0 ports all present and accounted for. On top of all this, it's supposed to be pretty frugal, pulling only 22W under load.
The one downside is that Sapphire will be shipping the EDGE-HD with FREE DOS as its OS to help keep the price down. However, it's fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7, and the resellers are expected to offer bundles with a copy of Windows 7 installed in case you're not comfortable setting it up yourself.
There are no details on pricing or availability just yet, but expect to see this miniscule nettop appearing at retailers soon.
