Another Wind Blowing?
It what either is a great display of high hopes, market distraction or pitiful hubris, PC World is reporting that an MSI representative has announced that the Wind desktop first discussed back at Computex is actually going to be released in Europe and Asia in…wait for it…July. Seeing as how the Wind laptop version has already seen two release dates come and go and may or may not hit shelves July 7th, I wonder if the MSI flak kept a straight face during his announcement. I bet somebody in the back at least giggled some. Of course, as this is a desktop unit and not a laptop, perhaps the lack of a battery may mean it will actually arrive before it’s UMPC cousin. Also, as a OEM company specializing in motherboards perhaps a desktop is more in MSI’s execution comfort zone.
Running the same Atom CPU as the laptop, the desktop Wind has fairly pedestrian specs. RAM will start at 1G and be upgradable to 2G, a standard HHD will be onboard as will be a DVD and WiFi. I am dubious if the Atom in a desktop will have enough power to run high end graphics programs or multitask very well, but as a light duty PC it could serve nicely.
The most interesting part of these devices is in the power consumption, burning only 35 watts running at full speed, as opposed to the normal 250 watts. The barebones version price point of 199 US is also a major advantage, undercutting the Asus Eee Box by a hundred dollars, much as the laptop versions are cheaper then their Eee counterparts.
Of course, an unreleased bargain is still just that…unreleased. We will see if the desktop version has any more luck then the laptop in getting out to the public on time.
Nothing on their website about the product yet, which apparently will not be released at all in the US. Time will tell.
Written by Zealot · Filed Under General
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