MSI's Cheap Desktop Suffers From Performance Anxiety
After
a few grim years ceded to the iMac, PC-based all-in-one desktops are
making an LL Cool J-esque comeback. Their next move: Make the switch
from semi-luxe gear designed for highly-aesthetic environments to the
mega-cheap world that the netbook has built.
MSI, creators of the popular Wind netbook line, actually has its
toes in both worlds with the Wind Top AE1900, which combines a somewhat
Mac-like, white-and-clear design with an ultra-cheap $589 price tag.
Specs look exceedingly promising at first: 250GB of hard drive
space, 2GB of RAM, integrated Wi-Fi, DVD burner, an SD card slot, and a
very bright 19-inch touchscreen display. If nothing else, it's one of
the best-looking touchscreens (non-capacitive; a stylus works better
than your finger) we've seen at this screen size. Windows Vista Basic
is preinstalled, and MSI also tosses a finger-friendly
program-launching skin on top of that. (It's easy to get from the skin
to Vista and back.)
But the Achilles' heel of the Wind Top is its baffling choice of an
Atom 330 processor to power these guts. Although the dual-core 330 is
known as the "fast" version of the Atom (it draws 8 watts instead of
the 2.5 watts used by the netbook standard Atom N270 and has double the
L2 cache), it's still woefully inadequate for a computer this
ambitious. The Wind Top AE1900 struggles with just about any task you
throw at it, from starting up to launching anything more complex than
Notepad. Benchmarks are rock bottom -- on par with actual netbooks --
and those otherwise impressive specs make you long for something far
snappier.
Even in environments where performance isn't a concern -- a kid's
room or the kitchen, both spots where you might actually put the Wind
Top -- the lengthy lag times are going to get frustrating. I frequently
found myself tapping an app to open it, assuming I hadn't clicked quite
right, and clicking it again a few more times, only to have the same
application launch itself five times in a row over the next few
minutes. Now try to imagine how frustrating that would be when you're
trying to get Disney.com open for a screaming toddler.
Advice to MSI: Drop in the cheapest Core 2 Duo CPU in lieu of the
most expensive Atom here and you'll have yourselves a real winner.
WIRED Amazingly affordable and loaded to the gills.
Touchscreen makes this a perfect kiddie computer. Slim profile lets it
fit just about anywhere. Cuter than a box of puppies.
TIRED Performance problems dog the user at every
turn. Flashing blue hard-drive activity light is front and center,
terribly distracting and impossible to cover up. Bundled keyboard and
mouse are beyond cheap. Webcam aim can't be adjusted.
Style:
All-in-one
RAM size:
2GB and under
Hard Drive Size:
200GB to 299GB
- Manufacturer: MSI
Price: $589 (as tested)
