Atom-powered MSI WindBOX nearly ready to ride your LCD
By Darren Murph 
posted January 26th 2009 11:27AM
posted January 26th 2009 11:27AM
posted January 26th 2009 11:27AM
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Car PCs typically don't have VESA mounting hardware...these are really meant to mount to back of your display.
Car PC cases (check nano itx/micro itx sites) looks the same but without vesa mounts.
Also..in a car PC noise is probably less of an issue than when you're in your living room wanting things quiet for a movie and you can hear the fan or disk of your computer.
You could attach it to this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824105003 1280x1024 touchscreen, and there you go.
looks like someone didnt do their research
The stand on that monitor is connected to the VESA mounds so you would need duct tape or superglue to attach it
This would be awesome hack replacement for the AppleTV! Considering my current hard drive has died (ribbon cable adapter is the culprit, I think) and am using an external USB drive, the extra ports would come in handy so that I could use the extra adapters to hook up to EYE TV and then boom! Awesome set top box! As long as it's around 100 bucks or so! Woudl be cooler if it did DVI as those are common to the LCD's
Perfect! I do have an old black bezel Sony LCD with d-sub connector that is still totally usable. What would even be better is if someone makes a VESA mount docking for the netbooks, so when I go home, i can slot my Wind/NC10/S10 to the back of the monitor and use a large keyboard/mouse.
Sadly, this wont be compatible with all screens that have a VESA mount because some screens actually use those screw holes for the attached stand.
Other than that, A awesome little box... Although it would be nice if there was a version that had the Atom 330 and(when its released) the Geforce 9400m chipset. =P
ASUS EEE Box is the exact same product and its been out for ages:
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11854
Again, you get VESA mount with this as well to mount on your LCD.
Looks nice - HDMI/DVI would be better, but seriously folks - I'm tired of the old and crufty Atom N270. Where are all the dual core sporting Atom 330 nettops? I don't want to jump into a netbook/top that doesn't have the horsepower to decode 1080 h.264, and the Atom 330 has been 'shipping' for months...
What about the keyboard and mouse - do they need to be wired?
Thinking I could just slide this behind my wall mount 46" Samsung.
This won't work with all LCD monitors that have the VESA mounting holes, because some monitors also use the VESA mount to attach the desktop stand included with the monitor. If you attach the MSI PC to such a monitor then you can't attach the desktop stand.
Nor can you wall-mount any monitor when there's a computer stuck to the VESA mount!
MSI could have put VESA mounting holes on top of their case so that you can still piggyback a stand or wall-mount the whole thing. But I wonder if the MSI case would support the weight of the monitor. The PC weighs 1.08 Kg, that doesn't sound like it has the sturdiest metal frame to me.
All of the Dell monitors we have in our office are like that (the VESA mount is "behind" the stand). Plus the Dell VESA mounts are recessed, so not sure if it can handle that situation.
"...Rather than forcing consumers to deal with yet another underpowered box on their desk..."
The article is worded poorly.
If you are stupid enough to spec the wrong machine for the job, the YES you WILL end up with an underpowered machine on your desk.
However, if you are smart enough to break away from the spoon-fed notion that you need multiple cores to surf the web and send emails, and you know what's needed for what YOU are doing, then you'll end up with the machine that is appropriate for the job you need it to do.
This is awesome FOR WHAT IT DOES.
So, they put a card reader on something that is supposed to be mounted behind my monitor? I know for the most part we just throw a storage expansion in there but if you actually wanted to use the card reader to read cards on the regular would this not be a huge pain in the butt.
...Will wait until it has the nVidia 9400 chipset and DVI out.
you guys know this is the same as an MSI Wind Netbook right? its just the motherboard placed into a case for a vesa mount. All the ports match up to the netbook version.
I'll stick with my HP t5730 thanks, with dual monitor (1 DVI, 1 VGA), wireless, 8 usbs ports
thanks
brilliant !.. I'm in the process of building a carpc, and this is exactly what I want, no doubt its using the same motherboard as the wind laptop, so getting OSX to run will be cake on it.
WindBOX: "Oh yeah baby~~ You like that don't you~~~"
so.. no internal storage?
Doesn't any here want gigabit speed out of their ethernet port? Especially when this box will be used to pull large large files from NAS.
You know, this device would be perfect to connect up to my Wide Screen TV to use to view streaming video. I stick a blue tooth keyboard and mouse on it, and there I have a dedicated stream box. Who needs cable anymore when I have hulu.com and fancast?
Already have the EEE BOX. HDMI, optical out, vesa mount, 4 usb + card reader. I love it and I'm waiting for the announced EEE BOX with Nvidia graphics and I think it has the dual core atom. Very happy with it, hooked it up to my 24" dell ultrasharp and use it for casual use and it also serves as my iTunes and home video server and my utorrent server. Have a 1.5 terabyte USB HD hooked up to it also when I need to serve media. Currently have 2 gb ram and 500 gb harddrive in it.
GMA 950 graphics...yuck. Yet another candidate for nVidia ION. not affiliated, yada yada. HDMI and digital optical folks, that the connectors i'm looking for.
Although people here seem to be thinking MSI came up with this brilliant idea themselves, it does look a lot better than all the others out there like this.
I would love to see this for under $200 to replace my aging thin clients. Truly brilliant idea!
LOL I've had my Mac Mini mounted on the back of my LCD for months. Way more powerful and flexible. Runs OS X, XP, Linux...
I think this is a great idea, but find myself irritated that Dell does not leave the VESA mount holes accessible in my 2405FPW while using the OEM stand, thereby defeating the purpose of this device.
That's one sweet idea. If the box itself wasn't so underpowered.
A very good idea, though not new. Years ago there was Linutop (http://www.linutop.com/linutop2/index.es.html), but it was even more underpowered.
I often see so many public offices, post offices, bank offices, doctor terminals, store point of sale, hotel reception terminals, signage, etc. using large regular PC cases... this would save them space, cables, power, heat, noise, ...
i like these, pretty nice to hide away the computer, especially when your lookin at a 24 inch, but this is to underpowered for me
This would be perfect if they would have used something other than a GMA 950. I would love be able to watch high def netflix .
Oooh Engadget missed the boat again. EEE box had it since the first model!
It kinda looks like they're taking a shot at iMacs....a really BAD shot.
What they need to do now is include a monitor power cable splitter (or i guess just make your own) that way you only have 1 power cable going away from your monitor.
I think this is a great idea, I have a bunch of old 17"-20" widescreen lcd's in the closet I dont use any more, this would be cool for mounting a computer in the kitchen, garage, bathroom, etc.
Now that I think of it.. what about the keyboard and mouse.. i guess Id rather hook this up to a touchscreen monitor to prevent the need of any accessories.
This seems durable enough to easily mount in a car as well. Those 8" vga touchscreens for cars are only about $100.
It would be cool to find a cheap LCD monitor with a touchscreen panel on it and attach this to the back of it. I would definitely put that in the kitchen for recipes, some YouTube, or whatever.
Win.
You might want to check out a better solution www.moderro.com
Why would you need DVI/HDMI? You can just use a VGA to component adapter to hook it to your HDTV, if that is your intended use for the device. If you are hooking it to a monitor, what benefit would come from DVI/HDMI? Is there really a difference between 1440x900 over VGA vs DVI/HDMI? How about 1920x1200? Resolution isn't limited by connector type, its limited by the gpu and what the manufacturer allows over said connection.
I love how anyone who buys a TV better than a Vizio, speakers nicer than what comes from Wal-Mart, or anything more expensive than what the readers here can afford are considered fools, but so many here bitch that this thing doesn't have DVI/HDMI. YOU CANNOT SEE A DIFFERENCE! I mean get real. How much better do you think Hulu/YouTube will look with a different connector? I'll give you a hint, NONE!
Please, please, please think about the intended use of a device before you bash it. This device is called a "net top", not a media center extender or gaming rig. For surfing the web, viewing photos, checking email, etc., this unit is brilliant.
This almost looks like an all in one.
Hmm..With specs almost as good as the Mac mini, and definitely just a fraction of the price, why the hell not?