It does appear that the Windbox franchise is about to start to hit the market with the freshly minted CS120, which has the wonderful feature of running at a miniscule 35Watts.
To put this into perspective a regular desktop PC runs at 300Watts. So this little machine uses approximately the same amount of power in a 24 hour period as a regular PC would in 3 hours.
Incredible eh?
You would think that with such low power specs. this machine would be a bit of a lightweight, but as nettops go its not too bad. The(1.6GHz) Intel Atom 230, 160 GB Hard Drive and 1GB of RAM.
What does make this machine shine, apart from the super eco-friendly green low power usage is its nifty DVD burner all packed into a box 11.1 x 9.45 x 2.56 inches.
Posted in News.
The WindBox family has just got a new shiney big brother, the WindBox DE200.
Just released at CeBIT 2009 today it has a similar form factor to its little brother the DC100 but with one added exception.
Its got Blu-Ray!
Not to many detials yet but here what we know so far…
Feature List:
- HDMI & DVI outputs
- 802.11n WiFi
- 2GB of RAM
- NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M
- 160GB hard drive
- Multicard reader
- Celeron M 2GHz
Pricing and release date to be announced.
Posted in News.
Tagged with blu-ray, de200, windbox.
Not so hot on the hells of the EeeBOX appears a new flavour of the sooon to be released WindBox DC100. With ‘ner a VESA mount in sight, this little gem is designed to sit snugly on your desktop and bears an uncanny resemblance to the EeeBox is virtually every way. One feature worth noting is the very visible DVI port and it s rather unusual reference to 2 Litres as a form factor.
Specs are very similar to the VESA mounted version with a 160gb Hard Drive and 1.6GHz Atom N270, 1GB of RAM.
No detials on pricing or release date yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we hear.
Posted in News.
Tagged with dc100, dvi, nettop, windbox.
One of the more popular aspects of the MSI Wind Laptop is its uncanny ability to run Apple OSX very very well.
Lots of netbooks can run OSX, few can do it any way as good as the MSI Wind.
Mac OS XÂ Netbook Compatibility Chart – Boing Boing Gadgets
So how well will the WindBox run OSX?
Definitively I can’t say, but taking into account the specs of the WindBox parallel the MSI Wind I would imagine its going to prove to be an enormous success. The idea of mounting a small nettop virtually designed for OSX on the back of a spare monitor is going to prove far too irresistible for anyone who wants to run Leopard without forking over heaven and earth just for the experience.
The real killer app for the WindBox will undoubtedly be its place as an OSX Media Center PC in the Living Room.
An invisible VESA mounted OSX system with Front Row for less than $250 dollars  sounds too good to be true, but in just over a month or two there will be  a deluge of blurry-cams of the amazing invisible iMAC clone pinned behind a wall mounted LCD TV hitting youtube.
This is where the WindBox will really excel. The MSI wind is already leaps and bounds ahead of its netbook rivals when it comes to the OSX experience, the WindBox will just move this into the living room.
As Apple would say ‘it just works’.
Posted in News.
The Windbox has, what many view as a major Achilles heel, namely is lack of a real digital DVI port for true digital output.
I have no idea why MSI, with such a wonderful product would want to leave out a standard feature such as this but it does appear to be the case that VGA will be the only option.
But is it really all that bad?
For me the honest truth is I cannot tell the difference. I have both DVI and VGA monitors and both appear to deliver an excellent image.
One possible problem you may run into with VGA is ‘ghosting’ but as this is primary caused by the physical length of a VGA cable. I would imagine in the case of the WindBox this won’t be an issue as it most likely will be slapped bang on the back of your flat screen TV or monitor.
What you should watch out for may not be the video output but the actual monitor itself.
Given the case where you had a VGA output to a fast response high contract LCD or a DVI output to a low response low contrast screen the VGA wins hands down every time.
Posted in News.
Tagged with dvi, vga, windbox.
One of the greatest deficencies of a typical media center PC is the noise.
The low background hum of a PC in the living room is not something to be looked upon lightly. Â The sound of a spinning fan in the background will result in a low level of noise. If you have never experienced it it is, to say the least unpleasant, constantly urging you to switch the machine off.
The Windbox promises if not to iliminate , at least reduce the background noise down to a very low level,  something which we can already see in the  MSI Wind NetTop D130.
The newly released Wind NetTop D130 is also touted to be ultra quiet utilizing the same technology as the Windbox with a  specially designed chipset which doesn’t require a fan.  So far all reports point to a winner here too generating only 30dB of operating noise which is most likely quieter than your average living room.
Just to give you an idea of how quiet this is heres a simple comparison:
Normal breathing -10dB
a whisper in a quiet library.  -30dB
Normal conversation – 60dB
Busy traffic – Â 70dB
Average factory -80dB
Niagara Falls -90dB
Quiet isn’t it?
Posted in News.
Tagged with cooling, d130, nettop.
The actual specifications of the Windbox are virtually the same as the MSI WInd Netbook sans screen.
One interesting feature and a must have if your planning on using the system as a media PC is the ‘passive cooling’ aspect of the system. While running the only sound you should hear is the hard drive which shouldn’t be a showstopper in any scenario.
The only way of really telling is to actually slap one on the back on a monitor and until release date (Q1 2009) we won’t really know either way.
Here’s the system specifications as per MSI Taiwan.
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Processor
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Intel® Atom™ N270 1.6GHz (TDP 2.5W)
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Chipset
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Intel® 945GSE + ICH7M
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Memory
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1 GB on board/1*DDR2 SO-DIMM 553/667, 1GB
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Graphic Engine
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Intel® GMA 950 3D Graphic Engine
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Display Port
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1* VGA
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USB
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3 * USB 2.0 Port
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LAN
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1 * Realtek 10/100 LAN
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WiFi
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802.11 b/g
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Audio
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2 jacks Mic In; Head Phone Out
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Antenna
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1 * SMA Connector (Optional)
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Card Reader
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3-in-1 (SD/MMC/Memory Stick)
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Storage
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1 * SATA II
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Application
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Digital Signage, Thin Client, Value PC, POS
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Power Specification
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Power Source
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DC 20V, 40W
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Mechanical and Environmental
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System Dimension
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180 x 255 x 19 mm, 1.08 Kg
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Operating Temp
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0°C to 35°C
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Storage Temp
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-20°C to 80°C
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Posted in News.
Tagged with News, specifications.
It may be the beginning of a revolution…
MSI have unveiled their latest piece of hardware, based on the MSI Wind netbook which can be VESA mounted on the back of a monitor.
The WindBox, a nettop PC which rivals the EEE PC Box fits snugly on the back of a standard monitor and should be released in the next few months.
Posted in News.
Tagged with News, releases, windbox.
