FIC Condor Small Form Factor Reviewed

VL writes "A gamer's best friend? That's FIC's catch phrase, and we take them to task in our latest review. 'FIC put together a nice little barebone PC, but missed on some important features that enthusiasts have come to expect. While it's no slouch in gaming, it does not stand out in the performance department which is a shame as the design itself was well thought out.'"

Comments

Nightmare

[Ambient_Developer]

These speciality pc's are technicians worst nightmare!

Re:Nightmare

[The_Mystic_For_Real]

It's strange, listening to someone complain about the difficulties of dealing with the diversity among computers, when, throughout all of /., I hear about monopolies and everything being the same dull, grey box to to large corporations squeezing the littel guy with the innovative design out.

On another topic, I think that it is rather foolish to order a specialty PC and not be able to repair it yourself, or have the money to buy totally new parts. It's similar to owning an old car from a now defunct manufacturer. Cusomers shouldn't expect the same service as if they owned an uncustomized computer from a large manufacturer.

Re:Nightmare

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'm not sure what the problem is as this model and other non-standard designs are somewhat nifty from a maintainance perspective. I've found some that are quite a bit better. While I stick to Compaq Deskpro ATX systems for cheap servers, there is one non-standard form factor Deskpro I bought to try out that was surprisingly easy to disassemble to nearly an empty case without needing a screwdriver.

While ATX is nice for maximum flexibility, it demands a pretty large box even for miniATX, and even then not many cases place an emphasis on ease of maintinance anyway.

thats gonna be one HOT box

[Foktip]

ive had a tiny computer like that for a while, and its a heating nightmare... ive had it overheat so much i had to pull out the ol' dremmel and saw a hole in the side, to add a fan. but now its all noisy, and still is quite hot.

my question is, with one of those new 3.6 pentiums (the heat kings), and a new radeon or geforce, can this thing sustain long gaming parties without melting down? especially when it has so little fans and such a cramped case?

what's with the doors?

[poptones]

I have a mini system I put together from parts. It's a nice enough case (an off-brand minitower I got from computer geeks) but it - like just about every single mini system I've seen - has these damn doors over the ports on the front. The cdr door isn't too bad (except that it also means you have to remove the front of the drawer on the drive thus leaving the noiseproofing gasket out of the picture, which means going back four years to listening to jet engine takeoffs every time you use a DVD or CD) but the doors on the connectors mean your stuck with two choices:

1) never use the front panel jacks

2) use the front panel jacks and risk damage to the cheap plastic doors thus ensuring your nice looking system eventually looks like ass.

Of course, 1) isn't foolproof either, since it's incredibly easy to break on of these things off at the hinges just by laying it in the car seat wrong.

I can't stand those cubes with the jacks sticking out the front like some afterthought, either - but would it really be so hard to stick all those jacks in a nice even row at the bottom of the case behind a black rubber or felt gasket? Maybe use those black nylon fibers like at the end of vacuum cleaner dust attachments. It would look nice, be unbreakable, and only slightly more cumbersome to connect (Where's the hole? I know it's here somewhere...")

Anything other than flimsy plastic doors would be an improvement... especially at 650 fucking dollars! Yeesh!

Gamer's best friend?

[nerd256]

Im tired of these mfg. pandering to the "gamer" crowd. (obviously there is lotsa money in this market). However, I tend to prefer the big power-hogging flashy-lights boxen. I think the sleek metal toasters would more appeal to the office, asthetics people. And if you're really looking for power for the money you'd build it yourself. This is the most impressive to me- ones determination to create a unique machine. If you're into gaming, you're also likely to be sitting on your butt, thus undercutting the small form factor (which tacks on lotsa parts costs) which are more suited to portable/embedded applications.

Now if you just like spending money on trivial things.... well I'll be quiet then

Re:Not impressed.

[Bill_Royle]

Man - I haven't used a 200W power supply in years! With every PC I've built, I get nothing less than 400W - and I'm not even a gamer! I can only imagine what "true" gamers need for power...

A gamer's best friend? Hell, if I had this one I'd possibly agree with the term "friend of a friend"...

Price?

[beaverfever]

I got through two pages when I gave up looking. Shouldn't a review have the price of the product being reviewed? Knowing the price is central to determining whether a product is a good value or not, or at least that's what I thought. Perhaps the reviewers know better than I.