A Nettop is a type of mini desktop or small form factor computer designed for performing basic computation tasks such as surfing the Internet, accessing web-based applications and rich internet applications, document processing and audio/video playback etc.. The word Nettop is a portmanteau of Internet and desktop, similar to the portmanteau "netizen."
Compared to ordinary desktop computers, nettops are not only smaller, lighter and cheaper, they also consume much less power. For example, ASUS's Eee Box nettop computers consume as little as 36 watts of power whereas a typical desktop would easily consume more than 100 watts of power. The trade off to this is that the hardware specifications and processing power are usually reduced and hence make nettops less appropriate for running complex or resource intensive applications.
