COMPUTER-CHINA

When comparing the Wind desktop to a traditional PC, the former stands out with two major advantages: size and power consumption. Its dimensions are 300mm by 260mm by 65mm and, for running at full capacity, it only needs 35-watts (a regular PC goes for 250-watts). A system description: 160GB 7200 SATA HDD, Wi-Fi, 7.1-channel audio and built-in TV card.

The mini-laptop computer comes with 2GB of DRAM, 80GB HDD and can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.


At the beginning of April, Hewlett Packard announced the launch of its 2133 Mini-Note. Starting at a base price of $500, it has a nine-inch screen with 1280x768 resolution, weighs about 2 1/2 pounds and comes with an aluminum case and an optional webcam. The computer was outfitted with a 1.2GHz Via processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 120 GB, 5400 RPM hard drive.

In the second half of April, Asustek Computer Inc. unveiled the Eee PC 900, that comes with an 8.9-inch display running at a resolution of 1,024 by 600 pixels, 1GB of memory, Intel UMA graphics card, Intel Mobile CPU, Wifi, VGA out, and SD/MMC slot, a 1.3-megapixel camera and either a 12GB or 20GB solid-state drive (SSD) for storage.

The first MSI Wind laptop computer has been named the U100 and comes with a 10-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, and an LED (light emitting diode) backlight, which saves power and provides a better picture.

The Atom microprocessor on board also helps save power. MSI says Wind can run for 6-hours on the six-cell battery, which is optional on the device. It comes with a three-cell battery standard.

The mini-laptop computer runs Microsoft Windows XP and does not have an optional Linux OS, unlike many of its rivals. Wind can hold 80G bytes of data on its HDD (hard disk drive), holds up to 2G bytes of DRAM and connects wirelessly to the Internet via Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.On Tuesday, at the Computex electronics show, Micro-Star International (MSI) launched the Wind mini-desktop PC and the Wind mini-laptop computer.

The Wind mini-desktop takes a page out of rival Asustek Computer's book. Asustek last week revealed the Eee Box, a mini-desktop PC that has an Atom microprocessor, will come with either a Linux or Windows XP OS, and will begin selling in July for around US$300. The machine takes its name from the popular mini-laptop computer, Eee PC, by Asustek.