Hardware Antec MicroFusion Remote 350

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2009/03/27/antec-microfusion-remote-350/1

This is the Antec MicroFusion 350, the micro ATX little brother of Antec's awesome Fusion HTPC chassis. Although the case has had a face lift, the Fusion styling is still there, but why does opting for less case mean you have to pay more money? We built a PC inside it to find out.

 

yay! Been waiting for a review of more HTPC goodness.

small typo first page: "of the its bigger brother"

 

My first thought was 'looks loud', is it even worse than a xbox 360? :>

 

I really hope that isn't an 80Watt power supply!

Also you say the fans are adjustable, so why no cooling or noise results with the toned down a bit?

No mention of the 80plus certification on the power supply.

No screenshots of the program you mention.

Not the usual thorough review we're used to here on bit-tech!

 

It's not - thanks for picking that up. It's a 350W 80-Plus certified unit.

This was with the fans set at their lowest setting because, in a home theatre PC, noise is everything. As the fans were definitely audible (unacceptably quiet for an HTPC) at low, they'll be even louder at high.

 

I have to agree with tank_rider:

The language used here is not anywhere near anything published before Dennis... again. I really hate doing this but I have to say the quality of your articles is going down, down, down, down. I don't say it's THG-bad but... you get my point.

Other than that, I still think the best option for a new HTPC is building the case from scratch.

 

It's all doom and gloom because you feel this one article is not up to your standards?

 

Why can't they make it not so deep? I would prefer it to be wider but shallower

 

No, Tim. It's not just that one.
I said the same about the "On Our Desk" article and I feel like most articles not written by one of you guys is of lesser quality. If I, for example, take the "The Path" review by Joe... it's an example of outstanding language and content quality. Compared to this one it just feels like they don't get the same treatment as articles written by any of the old boys.
I don't want to sound like an arsehole and I don't think BT is getting worse in general [Especially not now, that IntelliTXT is a goner. Thanks again, Tim. ] but as said before, the quality of your articles seems to go down.

It's just little things but I miss that kind of attention you seemed to spend on every article. I mean, more people seem to complain about typos, missing words or sentences that don't make sense.
Maybe it's just me being stupid or over-critical but that's the way I feel. Maybe I'm completely wrong.

 

I do take criticisms like this seriously, as does the rest of the team, and I appreciate you being frank. Part of what got us where we are now is an often fickle (but still entirely loveable) community. The community chews our ears when things don't meet their standards and that's actually useful to us because you tell us if something isn't good enough, rather than just letting us assume it's all hunky-dory on the bit-tech ship.

There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes at the moment as the two teams (bit-tech and Custom PC) are working to deliver the best content across both online and print mediums. What we are working to do is to give both more resources than they've ever had before and the end result should be a lot more content that's better and has more time spent on it than ever before.

There's already been a great example of this in the news section, where there are now people in the team dedicated to writing news, which enables us to spend a lot more time researching and writing the stories we write. This is also happening across the reviews team as well which has now more than doubled in size. We're in a bit of a transitional period and the Custom team is learning the ropes on bit-tech, much like the bit-tech team is learning some of the constraints associated with writing the occasional article in print.

In short, I apologise in advance if there are any reviews that come across as sub-standard in this period, but that is honestly - hand-on-heart - not the intention of either the bit-tech, the Custom PC or the combined editorial teams. The Custom team shares the same passion for technology and games as the bit-tech team and, because of that shared passion, it feels like we've been working together for much longer than we actually have.

What we're attempting to do with both bit-tech and Custom PC is actually very difficult because the two have very different schedules. It has gone pretty well so far, though. We're working through the barriers as and when they turn up in front of us and Dennis Publishing's goals are shared by both teams - we want to deliver the best and most highly regarded content both on bit-tech and in Custom PC. That was one of the key reasons Dennis acquired bit-tech in the first place. Content is king and it'll always be that way.

 

The written English in this article is pretty poor, overlong sentences that could do with a bit more care in the edits and correct use of punctuation.

Was published when it's clearly not ready, I'm not going to both pointing out all the errors there are way too many and they get in the way.

Is BT getting worse?

I don't know really, this article was just a badly checked example of dullness. A non exciting review of a not very exciting product, you've done better recently so I'm not going to say it's an example of a downwards trend.

 

Ah I didn't seem to pick that up in the article, maybe i missed it but it might be worth a extra couple of words in the summary at the end about them being too loud even on low.

I understand about the whole merger thing, where I work we're going through a re-structuring so I feel your pain!

 

Thank you for the honest answer, Tim.

As I said, I don't have the feeling that BT is getting worse in general, just some of the articles aren't as polished as I'm used to after 5 years of being a regular reader. If that is the case because some writers have to get used to the style and/or you're in the middle of a greater transition project I can understand that.

I take your word for the fact that you're always trying to be/do the best possible and I wouldn't be here every day [most days more than once] if I didn't think you are THAT good.
I just thought I'd let you know, as you always say the community is at the heart of BT and I truly believe that.
Now I'll end this little rant I started and go back to just discussing articles.

 

This may just be me as a non-native english speaker but doesn't...
"unacceptably quiet for an HTPC"
...mean it's too quiet???
What?

Xir

 

What he meant is:

Relatively quiet for a normal pc, but not quiet enough for a HTPC.

 

so it's unacceptably loud

 

I think Tim probably meant something like:

Unacceptable quiet level for an HTPC. Too loud.

My CM ATCS HTTPC is inaudible more than 1.5 ft. away. If it's going to be an HTPC it needs to be quiet and not make you turn up the TV to hide the fan noise.

john