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MSI Toast PC catches our eye, and that's all she wrote
Who knows what's actually housed in the device, but judging by the accompanying placard, MSI is playing the aesthetic card with this one. Designed as both a PC and a decoration for the home, it's certainly pleasing on the eye. And like the sign says, "don't try to put in toast" -- cute, but we'd rather that line had a commitment to releasing this sucker. Or a price range. Or some hint as specs. Or anything tangible, really. %Gallery-87374%
Zotac's ZBOX HD-ID11 has NVIDIA Ion 2 and Atom D510 to thank for excellent media playback (updated)
Like gaming? Move right along to the iBuyPower booth, please. Want an unobtrusive PC that will feed your Hulu and YouTube HD streaming addiction? Say hello to the ZBOX HD-ID11. It's basically a desktop version of the same Ion 2 setups you saw announced on the mobile front yesterday, and as such should provide flawless Flash 10.1 playback while occupying an extremely lean footprint on your desktop. Zotac has matched MSI's Wind Box DE220 with its inclusion of a dual-core 1.66GHz Atom D510 CPU, though it obviously differs with its NVIDIA Ion 2 graphics subsystem that includes 512MB of dedicated DDR3 memory. HDMI 1.3a and standard VESA wall-mounting are expected extras, with six USB ports, integrated 802.11n WiFi, dual-link DVI, and a 6-in-1 media card reader covering the rest of your bases. Check out some 1080p playback on a similarly specced system right here while you wait for pricing and availability to be revealed. Update: We've heard directly from Zotac on the matter of pricing and we're told that the American MSRP will be $209.99 ($239) for the barebones edition, which will require you to add your own hard drive, memory and OS. Update 2: Zotac seem to have been a little too ambitious with the initial price they quoted and have asked us to correct that number upwards by 30 bucks -- MSRP is now expected to land at $239.
Shuttle's XS35 nettop is 3.3cm thin, too nice to hide behind your HDTV
Nettops keep getting better, and thinner too if Shuttle's latest is anything to go by. It's the XS35, a 3.3cm thin affair packing a dual-core Intel Atom D510 at 1.6GHz and Ion 2 graphics with HDMI output for easy connectivity to your high definition display of choice. Somehow the company has also found room for five USB ports, VGA and discrete audio outputs, an Ethernet jack, and a card reader. It's passively cooled, so the only noise you'll hear will be the spinning platters of its 2.5-inch hard disk or the spinning of an optical disc, which yes somehow fits in there too (making it perfect for watching your Thunderbirds DVD collection). No price yet but it'll be on display at CeBIT in just a few days and shipping sometime in the second quarter of this year. %Gallery-86599%
Habey intros fanless, noiseless Atom Z510-based BIS-6620 mini PC: shh!
Habey's no stranger to the diminutive PC arena, but the latest from the company just might be the one you've been scouting. If you've been scouting a mini PC that's dead-silent, that is. The BIS-6620 is described as "an ultra-compact fanless and noiseless PC platform based on the Intel Atom Z510 processor," measuring just 4.5- x 4.5- x 1.5-inches and offering up GMA 500 graphics, 1080p hardware decoding, a single DDR2 SODIMM memory slot, room for a 1.8-inch (iPod classic-sized), a few USB 2.0 sockets, integrated SD / CF card readers, gigabit Ethernet port, an optional WiFi module and your choice of OS (Windows XP Embedded, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Linux). There's a fair chance this could double as a simplistic media player in your cramped studio apartment, and at just $299.99 at NewEgg, you won't be shattering the bank in the process. Video's after the break.
ASUS Eee Top ET1610PT with Atom D410 shows up in online support pages
While it doesn't seem to be available to order yet, ASUS' first Pine Trail-equipped nettop is close enough to release that the Taiwanese manufacturer has let some of its specs loose already. What we know so far is that it'll come with Intel's Atom D410 CPU, 802.11b/g/n wireless, six USB ports, a 5-in-1 card reader, and a webcam -- all while keeping Windows XP's dreams of immortality alive. The 1610 will be a 15.6-inch all-in-one, like its predecessor, with the T model offering optional touchscreen functionality. It's hard to argue that the new Atoms offer any great performance gains, but then ASUS is not expected to charge any premium relative to its older models, making this a desirable, albeit incremental, upgrade. [Thanks, Sal]
Open-PC is the nettop for those who won't be constrained by you and your corporate ways
Nettops come in all sorts of shapes, from Wii would-bes to keyboard come-alongs, but they're all small, and most are running some variant of Windows. Not the Open-PC. It isn't particularly svelte (345 x 425 x 100mm) and it is entirely free of commercial software, with a KDE core neatly wrapped in a collection of free software. It was designed by the community, specifications and even price determined by a set of surveys, and by the end of the month it will be available to those who said they wanted it -- meaning it's put up or shut up time, Linux fans. Price is €359 (including a $10 donation to the KDE project), a bit steep for a machine rocking an Atom N330 processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive, but then again you can't put a price on stickin' it to the man.
MSI Wind Box DE220 displayed and detailed
In all the CES madness, we somehow missed MSI's previously-teased Wind Box DE220. Fortunately, Liliputing didn't; the site's just now putting up impressions and along with it some specs of the novel-sized nettop. It's packing Pinetrail for starters, in the form of a single-core Atom D410 or dual-core D510. Also included are an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, up to 1TB HDD / 4GB memory, 802.11b/g/n, and Windows 7 home premium. Mum's the word on price or release date, but from what we've seen, you can at least start decorating around its known color options: blue, red, and black.
Great Wall Cross PC U150 Ion-izes the Eee Keyboard
Our interest in the ASUS Eee Keyboard has thoroughly waned as the Atom N270-based internals have aged with time, but the new Cross PC U150 from China's Great Wall puts a little juice back into the remixed C64 form factor with the addition of NVIDIA Ion graphics. Sadly there's no battery or wireless HD out, and it doesn't support dual displays -- the internal 5-inch touchscreen on the right shuts off when an external monitor is connected -- so we're not sold on this guy as a lap-based HTPC, but we're willing to check it out. Anyone got 3888 Yuan ($570) and an extra ticket to China?
Asus Eee Box 1501 with Blu-ray on its way to Switzerland
Good news, everybody! If you're looking into one of Asus's Eee Box 1501 nettops but weren't exactly into the built-in DVD burner, well, better days may be ahead. It looks like a new version of the 1501 is on its way, this time packing Blu-ray. In case you've forgotten the specs, the Eee Box 1501 packs NVIDIA's Ion chipset, an Intel Atom 330 dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and an HDMI port for good measure. There's no official word on this yet, but the release of the Blu-ray boasting updated nettop looks likely for Switzerland in the near future, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for more information.
ASUS' Ion-powered EeeBox EB1012 resurfaces on Amazon in sub-$400 range
Well, would you look at that? Materializing after the fog of CES, ASUS' Eee Box EB1012-B0257 nettop, known colloquially as "the low-cost home theater PC we've been longing for," has popped up on Amazon. In case you forgot, this little guy's packing Intel's 1.6GHz Dual Core N330 Atom processor, NVIDIA Ion, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Windows 7, HDMI out, 802.11b/g/n, and a sextet of USB 2.0 ports. Still no release date but at least we have a better idea as to its cost of entry: $399, with a 3 percent / $12 discount care of the online retailer. Only color being shown right now is a sleek black, but as we saw last time, there should be a white model in the pipeline for some point in the indeterminable future. [Thanks, Joel]
Mouse Computer Lm-mini20 nettop crawls out with NVIDIA Ion
ASUS and Acer have made sure we'd never have a shortage of Ion nettops, but it appears Mouse Computer is sneaking through the cracks with its Lm-mini20. Unlike the company's CD drive packing netbook, there isn't really much of note here. The 34800 yen ($376) version has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 160GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and NVIDIA ION graphics. And you can configure the standing mini-desktop to your hearts content with a larger hard drive and more RAM. We can't exactly say we are waiting for this little guy to hit the U.S. market when we have the competent ASUS Eee Box EB1501, but if you must have a Mouse Computer, at least for the jokes, you can hit the source link and order it up.
ViewSonic blitzes CES: HDTVs, nettops, PMPs, laptops and more
You wouldn't generally think of a smaller outfit such as ViewSonic having a major presence here at CES, but sure enough, the company has hit the ground blazing in Las Vegas. Kicking things off is the new ViewLED TV lineup, which consists of four LED-backlit sets ranging from 19- ($299) to 42-inches ($1,199) in size. Moving from HDTVs to PC panels, we've got ten new Eco-View monitors spanning the entire gamut of sizes and features. The company is also letting loose its VFP858 connected Bluetooth smart frame, which packs an 8-inch panel, an integrated microphone, stereo speakers and support for handsfree dialing... all from a digiframe. For media junkies on the run, the new line of MovieBooks (including the 5-inch VPD550T and 3-inch VPD313T) both sport touch-sensitive displays and sub-$150 price tags. Finally, we've got no fewer than nine new laptop and desktop models, including the 13.3-inch VNB131 ViewBook Pro, 18.5-inch VPC190 all-in-one and the VOT125 nettop. Obviously we've got far too many pricing, availability and hardware details to cover in this space, but all the information you could ever want on the new kit is hosted up after the break. %Gallery-81339%
MSI teases Wind Top AP1920, Wind Box DE220 and DC500
There ain't much to go on just yet, but one thing's for certain: MSI will be unveiling a trio of new machines at CES in just a few weeks. Over on the Wind Top side, it'll be introducing the all-new AP1920 all-in-one PC, which will measure in at 35mm thick and sport an 18.5-inch display, Atom D510 or D410 CPU and a power-sipping attitude. The nettop lovers will be thrilled to know that a new duo of mini PCs will also get unwrapped, as the Wind Box DC500 and DE220 step in with Intel's newest Pine Trail processors and a whole slew of companion components that we're still waiting to hear more on. Hey, we told you it was just a tease.
Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review
You don't need booming sales figures to tell you that netbooks have taken over the world -- the mobile computing world, at least. Their screenless and battery-free brethren, however, have yet to find quite the same success. Nettops are great tiny little machines but in general they've been under-powered and, while people love eking out another hour or two of battery life on the road, few sadly care whether their desktop computers pull down 17 or 71 watts of juice. Still, it's hard to deny the appeal of a fully-functional computer that's half the size of a Wii -- especially when it can manage 1080p output over HDMI. Viewsonic's VOT132, with its Ion graphics and trick magnetic DVD drive, is tiny, efficient, and powerful. The perfect media PC? Read on to find out. %Gallery-80890%
Intel's next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced
Get ready for the next generation of netbooks and nettops: Intel's just officially announced the Pine Trail Atom N450, D410, and D510, along with the NM10 Express chipset, and we should see over 80 machines with the 45-nanometer chips at CES 2010. Nothing too surprising about the 1.66GHz chips themselves, which integrate the memory controller and Intel graphics directly onto the CPU die: the N450 is targeted at netbooks, while the single-core D410 and dual-core D510 are designed for nettops, and each chip should use about 20 percent less power than its predecessor. That was borne out in our review of the N450-based ASUS Eee PC 1005PE, which got 10 hours of battery life in regular use, but unfortunately we didn't experience any performance improvements over the familiar N270 and N280. That jibes with other reports we've heard, but we'll wait to test some more machines before we break out the frowny face permanently -- for now, check out the full press release below.
Artopz Minitopz Ion-based nettop lamp rains down confusion, wonder
We don't get it. At all. That said, we're totally enamored with this Artopz Minitopz, which manages to both be an impressively-specced Atom and Ion-based nettop, and simultaneously a completely confounding piece of "art." Apparently it's supposed to be perceived as a lamp, but we'd say that stretches the limits of imagination. But it stretches them in a good way, that's all we're saying. Oh, and the Minitopz costs $2,250, just in case you thought you'd penetrated this fog of luxurious gadget oddity to the point of pulling out a wallet. Maybe the video after the break will help clear some things up? Nope, not really.
CherryPal debuts $99 netbook, names it Africa
If you're looking at a netbook whose motto is "small, slow, sufficient," you pretty much know what to expect. CherryPal's latest, named Africa (in honor of the nation of Ghana or something), has everything you'd want in a $99 computer: a 7-inch display, 400MHz processor, 256MB memory, 2GB flash storage, and either Linux or Windows CE under the hood. According to the company, you can expect about four hours use on the included Lithium battery. If that weren't enough, the company has introduced its online store -- no longer do you have to pick up your CherryPal PCs on the streets, like we did when we were your age. Hit the source link to get started -- but not before you check out the PR after the break. It's a real page-turner.
ASUS Eee Box EB1501 primed for $479 Amazon pre-order
We'd been wondering when ASUS' NVIDIA Ion and optical drive packing Eee Box EB1501 would touch down on US soil, and lo and behold today it's showing face for all those eager enough to pre-order. The device is available at Amazon for not a dollar less than $479 (though it does have free shipping), and if you'll recall, the box is boasting a 1.6GHz Intel Atom dual core N330, NVIDIA Ion graphics, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive. All that and you get Windows 7 Home Premium rather than the ever-graying Windows XP. Of course, if you're looking for all that in a mobile form factor you can always wait on the $499 ASUS Eee PC 1201N, but for set-top duty, feel free to unleash the credit card right now.
ASRock ION 330HT-BD nettop goes on sale for $589
If you're scouting a nettop that'll hit your doorstep prior to those Christmas bells ringing, you'll want to look elsewhere. That said, those with plenty of time to spare may want to consider ASRock's ION 330HT-BD, particularly if you just can't seem to stop renting Blu-ray Discs from Netflix. The box has just landed on Amazon with a $588.99 price tag and an admittedly frightening "usually ships within 1 to 4 months" warning, and if you're no fan of BD (liar!), the standard 330HT is in the same boat for $458.99.
Asus Eee Box EB1501 gets unBoxed
With that fancy disc drive, NVIDIA Ion under the hood, and considerable aesthetic improvements, the Eee Box EB1501 has seemingly little to do with the Asus Eee Box of yore. So, is it as stunning in person as it is on paper? The folks at Blogeee.net have unwrapped the thing and stood it on its fancy metal stand, and they seem to be digging it -- of course, their impressions are written in French, so we can never be entirely sure. Now if only Asus could work in an internal Blu-ray drive we'd be set! Hands-on video is after the break.
