This has been by far the best easies experience making a media streamer.
I purchased the Raspberry PI form Element 14 website which was $35 dollars for the Version B model. I purchased a clear case, usb cable as well as the power adapter just for the sake of completeness. I ended up paying like around $60 for the all of that plus shipping. still was $40 cheaper than buying an apple tv (2nd gen) and far easier to get XBMC installed on it.
The unit itself took very long to arrive, however when it arrived i had it running by the end of the same day. The major problem that i faced with it was to connect a wifi adapter since the usb does not provide sufficient power for it.
I ended up not using a wifi adapter, and instead i used the ethernet cable connected to a bridge, but he nice thing about my set up is that the power comes from the tv. so the Rasberry PI get power when the TV turns on.
the unit itself boots up pretty fast and its seems very reliable, the menu interface is nothing but great, no choppiness, it is very smooth. sound from HDMI is great. The only problem that i saw (or better heard) is that the analog sound was not clear, but i'm not sure if that is because of my TV.
