Shuttle's Atom-powered X27 mini PC goes easy on the power bill
By Darren Murph 
posted Aug 22nd 2008 11:24AM
posted Aug 22nd 2008 11:24AM
[Thanks, Adam]
posted Aug 22nd 2008 11:24AM
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Pretty sleek little boxes, although I can't help but wonder who would want this. If I were interested in a low-power machine because I didn't game and only needed to do Office work and browsing, I'd almost certainly go for a netbook with an external display that I could hook up at home, and use a seperate keyboard/mouse as well.
I suppose these have their place, I'm just not sure where. Dummyterminals in colleges and libraries?
I wonder if you can bolt it to the monitor/table securely and lock it, if they thought of that necessity in such library/college situations, because being so small and easy to grab and hide is nice for the thieves amongst us.
Wwhat, I would assume that a Kensington lock would do the job. Hopefully the case has a place to attach the lock.
Kensington locks are more for looks than security, as they do almost nothing to actually keep something where it's supposed to be. Where I work we have public pc's available and we've resorted to simply drilling a hole through a pc's case and bolting it to the desk or table when we think it'll be something desirable enough to get attention. A simple bolt has been much more successful than an actual lock.
I'm looking for a dedicated SqueezeCenter PC. If it can do other things, that's cool too, but I need it to be low powered. I'll probably keep my music files on a NAS RAID and access the control panel through an iPhone or something like that.
me likey. =)
The topside grill makes the unit vulnerable to spills. Front face has two flaps; bottom is probably for ports, top for either a slimline or slot-load optical. Hopefully WiFi is built-in.
This first wave of lo-po poptops (Eee Box, Dell Hybrid) is a bit wanting, since the supporting chipset is still the hoary Intel 945 or X3100. Needs HD decode at a minimum, and preferably HDMI & built-in IR receiver for TV connection.
Looks cool
Not bad for a small server and some extra HDD but wifi is missing :(
I don't see what the big deal of ommitting wifi is. EVERY Laptop should have WiFi as a standard. EVERY desktop mini-Pc like this should have WiFi.
Granted, connecting by Ethernet is faster. If your on the internet, and not playing bnandwidth intensive games, a nice 802.11n network is good enough.
Haha, that setup on the photo looks so fake.
no, its soo real that it looks fake.
What do you mean? I always use my mouse on an uneven burlap sack.
Yeah, I just hope it's not priced to match the snakeskin deskpad.
that is one ugly necktie.
Right back at ya, Stefan :)
I wished they released this back in 94 when they took this photo
1994 called, they want their joke back...
Oh, cool. When did they call? Man, it's been a while since I spoke with 1994. Hey, wait when did you start taking my calls anyway?
Couldn't find the Ronald McDonald tie so they had to settle for this bad boy?
If the price is anything above $250 it will be a waste of money IMO, unless the add a slimline optical drive and wifi.
Another thing that I don't understand is why are there still ps2 connections on the back, is it cheaper for the manufacturers than adding extra USB ports?
This looks quite promising. It would do great if the price goes around $150-175. A 40-80gig hdd. A DVD burner. Enough juice to run XP ($90) or Linux($0). Not everyone is into modding their systems. Just look at how we deal with laptops. The only thing we can do to them is increase the hdd and RAM capacity. That's it. So, the same concept with this unit.
Apple missed out with he Mac mini by pricing it $500 and up. I think a lot of people just figured they could get a laptop for that amount of money. I'm not Apple bashing. I just think that a lot of people are interested in having a pc that can do web and internet, and maybe play some music or videos on it. Just like the similar fashion we use DVD players.
Who decides to put that ridiculous tie and watch in that picture? Really? It ruins the picture for me, put it on a white background and call it a day...
it
man that was one helluva day.
I've liked Shuttle boxes for a good while, and this is just icing on the cake. Good find.
If it can boot without needing a keyboard attached, then I think I may have found the perfect PC to have at home for remote access.
That doesn't sound especially low power for a computer. I was reading an article the other day that said the 17" Core Duo iMac draws a max of 63W when it's getting hammered under OS X - and that has a 17" LCD in it, and a CPU that would kick the Atom's ass. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article594-page4.html
Yeah, I was surprised about the same. Got a Quad-core machine that its hard to push over 105 watts. If I think low-watt machine Im thinking more along the lines of 5-10 watts...
Yeah, the power draw has definitely been beaten. The Zonbu mini comes to mind - I think it maxes out at about 20watts. But then it had a very streamlined, highly optimized, and app-limited Linux. You wouldn't dream of putting any flavor of Windows it.
The real question is one of power-for-power - i.e. computing power over power draw.
Shuttle computers are overpriced crap! Innovation is usually used to describe their products yet most of their models still look just like the ones they released in 2003 and 2004. What other PC manufactures sell systems that look like there models from 4-5 years ago? I suggest contacting their Tech Support before you buy. I am sure you will quickly realize the low quality of the company personnel. Their Tech Support sucks almost as much as their products. Shuttle's time has come and gone. It's over Shuttle.
I think we're just seeing the first stage in a shift in home networking (but for the love of all things remotely tolerable DON'T let the word 'nettop' become popular).
Before long you'll be able to buy 3-6 of these in a bundle with a home server that can easily handle serving up media, web, and various automation apps to the entire house. That means very little need for any kind of drive other than a stick or card.
It's at least a generation or two away from being there until they can squeeze complete (read: 'everything-everything') wireless connection and control into this size. The software is basically there.
atom is a very weak processor. this thing is 8 times as slow as a core 2 duo i thnk
Nice looking. But with no HDMI, no WiFi and maybe no bluetooth (for remote keyboard/mouse) it isn't an obvious fit as a Media Center PC, which seems like the obvious target for me anyway. Sure you can do all these things with converters and USB dongles, but the competition, like the Dell Mini, doesn't require those...
Ditto the HD playback. Can it display 720p streams of h.264 content around 5-6Mbps without stuttering?
Eh, I see a lot of that and it still kinda confuses me; nettops and livingroom-bound HTPCs are not the same niche. We'd all like a $200 PC to be able to do everything a media center can right out of the box, but that's not where we're at right now.
Very sleek unit, the tie is a bust but what's wrong with the watch? In fact, what kind is it?
It looks like a Seiko 5 Sports with a Mile Marker. The mile marker crown is the big thing that looks 'wrong' on the side.
Low power reqs are great for off-the-grid dc powered setups like we use. Desktop unit don't make as much sense as laptops but the direction is nice to see.
I don't understand why this is supposed to be extraordinary in the power savings department. I have sitting right here in my office a Digital Engine 965hg (from cappuccinopc.com) with an 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, plugged into a Kill-a-watt, and it only draws 20 Watts idle and about 30 Watts doing useful stuff. This is much more capable than an Atom machine and doesn't take any more power. The box is probably smaller too.
Maybe so, but I'm hoping this one starts a little...um a frickin' whole lot lower than $ 659.
Nice to see that Shuttle made something that's pretty slim. I thought that all they made were those cube computers...