Nixeus Fusion HD Review

The home screen on the Nixeus Fusion HD is pleasing.

However, things start going downhill once you start navigating the internal menus or try to pull up options when playing media files. Don't mistake me, the UI is completely functional, but the fonts and the appearance are like what graphics used to be on DOS machines in the 1990s. Some of examples of the rudimentary UI during file playback are given below:

I am probably spoilt after seeing the UI of the WDTV Live Hub, the NTV 550 and the Boxee Box in this area, but I really feel Nixeus must improve upon this in their future products.

A gallery of the UI pictures is provided below:

As can be seen in a couple of the gallery pictures, the Fusion HD has a host of online services such as YouTube, iMedia (Fusion Web Channel) etc. These services are a hit or a miss (like in many other media players which have YouTube access). There is also support for Flickr, Shoutcast and Live365, which definitely work better than the video services.

The other special selling point for the Nixeus Fusion HD is the web browser. This is not usually implemented by other SMP 865x based media streamers.

Unfortunately, visiting any Flash website causes the browser to crash. In fact, I wouldn't advise using the browser unless it is just plain text and pictures on the website you plan to visit. The SMP 8655 platform is not powerful enough for Adobe Flash implementation or running a full featured browser. Unless Nixeus moves away from the Sigma Designs platforms, they should not implement web browsers in their future products.

There is also BitTorrent support, but, frankly, how many users are going to download their copy of Ubuntu using the Fusion HD? That said, I find BitTorrent clients on many media streamers. There must be a market for this feature and consumers must be demanding this probably. Another aspect I liked about the Fusion HD is the extensive support for keyboard and mice (even wireless!) through the USB 2.0 host port. Network setup and shared folder access (both SMB and NFS) were quite straightforward and proceeded without a hitch.