MSI ships $320 Wind Nettop CS120 to US, intros VR430 laptop
By Darren Murph 
posted March 12th 2009 3:39PM
posted March 12th 2009 3:39PM
MSI Unveils the Eco-friendly Wind Desktop PC
Wind Nettop CS120 Combines Energy Saving, Ultra-Silence, and Multimedia Entertainment
City of Industry, CA – March 12, 2009 - MSI, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is pleased to announce the release of the new desktop PC, Wind Nettop CS120, with WiFi, slot-in DVD rewriter and Energy Star® certificate. The Wind Nettop CS120 is equipped with the latest Intel® 1.6GHz Atom™ 230 processor, a 160GB SATA hard disk drive and 1GB of DDR2 SODIMM memory which is upgradable to 2 GB.
Energy-Saving and Ultra-Quiet
Wind Nettop's CS120 is a space- and energy- saving portal for home and business users. Compared to the 300W power consumption of general desktop computers, the Wind Nettop series can run full operating speed at 35W, saving about 90% on electricity . Users no longer need to worry about overdraft electricity even when using the computer over a 24-hour period. MSI has broken the myth that desktop PC is equivalent to high power consumption with the Nettop CS120's ENERGY STAR® qualifications.
WiFi and Slot-in DVD Rewriter
The compact size of MSI Wind Nettop CS120 features a stylish slot-in Super-Multi DVD burner, which is used for backing up data, installing software or playing movies. The MSI Wind Nettop CS120 is designed to be placed anywhere, including the living room. You can stay connected with the world by its integrated WLAN. Simply access to the Internet, email, and MSN everywhere you want!
7.1 Stereo H.D. Sound Provides the Excellent Sound Experience
Wind Nettop CS120 supports 7.1-channel High Definition output, allowing even the small space to have a big theater-like experience by showing clear treble and powerful bass. While enjoying music or film, Wind Nettop CS120 offers the amazing performance.
Time to convince certain grandparents to upgrade to this computer... I'm sick of hearing their complaints of their 9 (going on 10) year old computer.
Other then this being small, why would you get it?
You can get a Dell Inspiron 530s for 270 (that's 50 dollars cheaper)
And with a much faster processor, 2x as much ram, 2x larger HD, much better graphics, 7.1 sound, and the ability to add a ton of other hardware...
I can understand getting a netbook because it being small... but a desktop like this... and with its so inferior with its specs...
Good call. And at least with the Dell you can get HDMI for another $60 if you need it.
Course the CS120 comes with XP without having to pay the extra $150 Dell is going to charge you, if you insist on this.
I hate to be a Linux weirdo, but all you gotta do is install Ubuntu and make it real easy for them oldsters. It's a million times easier and more simple than Windows.
Some of my relatives stopped asking me technical questions!!
@bill cant fart
They stopped asking questions because they couldn't figure Linux out so they stopped turning on the computer altogether.
GMA950. Thanks for putting me off.
EEE box's are more of a power saver too, though it is lacking a optical drive.
This is what the mac mini should have been. At least spec-wise, obviously it needs some help in the looks department.
So they should have put much worse hardware into the Mini?
Makes a lot of sense . . .
@ Heir to the Massengill Estate-
You don't know what you are talking about. The Mini is great! The 9400 video card alone can drive a 30" ACD and 24". That is a lot of graphical power.
...... a little too close with the name there buddy
Wow. This is awesome! Looks kinda ugly and the VGA is not the best but it has a dvd drive + built in wifi. Load boxee on this thing and it's an amazing HTPC.
My sentiments exactly.
If you have a Media Library on your network already, Might want to replace the HDD with a small SSD just to hold the Boxee boot files and then just stream everything over the network.
Unless you try running HD, in which case it will burst into flames. I'll wait for the ION-based nettops to start coming out.
JerkyCrew > What's the highest quality it can handle? It can't play back 720p MKV?
It can probably handle 720p in something like Quicktime or AVI format in WMP or whatever. I would wait on a review before assuming it can handle 720p flash, e.g. Hulu in HD or ABC.com in HD or whatever. These are apparently more taxing, and you often see stuttering on Atom devices when attempting this.
It will probably play 720p but the future is H.264, probably wrapped in .MKV. Granted, this thing's relatively cheap so buying one of these now won't break the bank, but I'm going to wait for ION to use for my MythTV / Boxee / XBMC system.
You lost me at "GMA950 graphics"... :(
I agree about the GMA950. I was hoping to see this model have something with more GPU horsepower to it. Come on ION....
Why can't they raise the price $25 (or less!) , dump the GMA graphics and put even a lower-middle end ATI or nVidia graphics chip in these? I don't want to game on the thing, but I would love to be able to offload some HDMI onto a better card.
Can't do it with the current Atom architecture. They'd have to go with an 'external' video card which would increase the footprint of the board considerably. Right now the only available Atom chipsets are Intel video only. You can get a dual-core Atom CPU and board with a PCI slot on Newegg for under $100 IIRC and roll your own Nettop but the size will be considerably larger.
anyone have any idea what the wireless chipset is? that makes a difference for me. I'm not partial to winXP home, so I'd be wanting to load this with something a little more useful. Like linux. And that means need to know which wireless chipset we are looking at.
Got mine in yesterday actually! Atheros chipset, uses ath5k. Every bit of hardware worked with Archlinux right out of the box.
OK, you lost me at "GMA950 graphics"... :(
Like most of the other comments, I'll wait for something that can do HD. C'mon ION.
Sop calling them nettops!!!!!!!!
Nettops, nettops, nettops.
Nettops.
I kind of agree. At least Dell has come up with a (semi-)good naming system for form factors. They are
1) mini-tower (this is a standard PC tower)
2) desktop (this is like the old pizza box but can also stand vertical, think mini-tower but half the width)
3) small form factor (SFF) like the desktop only a lot smaller
4) ultra-small form factor (USFF), like the SFF but much smaller yet, and has an external power brick, which some love and some hate, also some can be mounted to the back of an LCD
Can't we just call these USFF's or maybe since they're even smaller, Micro Form Factor, or MFF? Nettop sounds like something from the circus or something
if this had nvidias' ion inside of it (9400M >>>>>>> GMA950), oh man i would instantly buy it.
needs better graphics, otherwise i dont see any real benefits over getting a U100, except for the optical drive
You can easily get a better deal from dell on a desk(net?) top
Low power + Compact Flash = Embedded Linux install... great for pfSense and Asterisk.