MSI Wind Top AE2010:
The MSI Wind Top AE2010 ($650 list) is a touch-sensitive, all-in-one desktop PC that has potential, but falls short in its current incarnation. It comes with a dual core AMD Athlon X2 processor, a decent amount of memory, and reasonably spacious hard drive. As is, the AE2010 is a very good performer in the nettop space, but the interface and software build bring the system's overall scores down.
Specifications :
- Price as Tested: $650.00 List
- Type: General Purpose, Value, All-in-one
- Processor Family: AMD Athlon X2
- RAM: 4 GB
- Storage Capacity: 320 GB
- RAID: No
- Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3200
- Primary Optical Drive: Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW
- Monitor Type: LCD Widescreen
- Screen Size: 20 inches
Features :
The AE2010 is well-outfitted. It runs a dual core AMD Athlon X2 3250e processor and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics. The system has 4GB of memory, a 320 GB hard drive, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi networking built in. These are great specs for a reasonably priced system. The system comes loaded with Vista, but if you want the new operating system you can upgrade for free with the included Windows 7 Home Premium coupon.
You may want to do that right away, too, as the AE2010 is a bit finicky with the touch sensitivity in Windows Vista. The system indicates on the screen when you've touched it by displaying an image of a mouse. You can then click the "right button" on the image to right-click to get a contextual menu on the screen. I prefer the hold-then-right-click method in Windows 7. Aside from that annoyance, the AE2010's touch driver in Vista isn't very accurate: it may click a few millimeters off from where you touch, which can get annoying in any application that requires accuracy. The system comes with a whole bunch of apps that would seem to reward touch, instead they are an exercise in frustration. Asus includes five programs that utilize drawing elements: Gimp (the open source photo editor), Dia (drawing), Ganntproject (project management), FreeMind ("mind mapping"), and GeoGebra (visual algebra/geometry/trig). All are easier to use with a mouse at this time. The specter of bloatware also haunts the AE2010: there's a 25-run trial copy of Office 2007 (even worse than 60-day trial), a 60-day subscription to Norton Internet Security (12-15 months would be better), and WinRAR (a file compression program) is only 40 day trial.
It's not all bad news: the system has Wind Touch, a "home page" for all the apps that organizes them in one place. It also has a couple of corny but useful games that teach novice users how to use touch and the webcam. The system's ATI Radeon HD 3200 will help display high-res video on the system's 1,600 by 900 resolution screen. It was able to smoothly play a MPEG-2 encoded HD video file in PowerDVD and Windows Media Player. YouTube HD videos were watchable, but will more likely be even smoother once Adobe updates Flash for GPU acceleration.
