"For those of us who want to experiment, the Fit-PC3 is worth it, hands down"
Here's a review from fit-PC3 user Garonda Rodian!
I'm buying the fit-PC3 to use as an all-in-one small office, pfSense based router/firewall/proxy/Wifi/VPN/Captive Portal. It fits really well for the advanced networking hobbyist market.
Your main competition is Netgate, Hacom, Cisco ASA 5505 and the lower end Junipers. And while the fit-PC3 is definitely a bit more expensive than the higher end Netgate offering, it's got a lot more I/O capability (particular video and GPU), a much more standard CPU, and a lot more overall potential - particularly if it also works as a VMWare ESXi 5.0 whitebox and the 5 GbE ports support VMWare's passthrough mode, at which time it can serve as an network in a box, suitable for small offices - router, firewall, caching proxy, VPN appliance, backup domain controller, and (very) light email server use.
For all-up Wifi devices:
the 2 Mini-PCIe FACE module gives you a total of 3 full size Mini-PCIe cards and 1 half size
this will allow for 3 120 degree sector antennas to cover customers (or whatever other 3 wifi channel setup a customer wants), given an additional network jack
or 3 120 sectors plus a directional antenna for the backhaul/central office connection if you add in the antenna bulkhead connectors to the FACE module and/or chassis (thefitpc.com can add at least 2 more RP-SMA bulkhead jacks).
or 4 90 degree sectors and a hard line backhaul, again with 2 more bulkhead jacks.
As a pure router/firewall, which is actually my use:
the faster CPU is nice, as are the dual Mini-PCIe slots - one half size, one full size, both of which are getting dual-band Wifi cards in my case.
you're crippled by the lack of industrial Mini-PCIe cards on the market - either VPN accelerators or wifi. High power Mini-PCI cards are common; high power Mini-PCIe are not.
the fit-PC3 Pro (T-56N) doesn't have the AES-NI instruction set, either, which is a downside for VPN use
Now, Ubiquiti will still clean your clock on price and capabilities for pure wifi devices, and the big commercial enterprise wifi will cost a lot (lot!) more and be much better, but for temporary wifi setups, adding a FACE module to an existing fit-PC3 adds flexibility. Again, a niche market, but niche markets are where the fit-PC line fit anyway!
The final word: For those of us who want to experiment, the fit-PC3 is worth it, hands down -- you can run a variety of OS's on it, and it's quite capable overall.
