Being based on the Intel Atom, the AE1900 consumes very little power – only 45W in full operation, which is far less than a conventional PC/monitor combo. The system is also quiet, although certainly not silent. Switching it on causes you to be greeted with a rush of air as the cooling fan spins into action. Thankfully, it slows down after a few seconds to a far less intrusive noise level that MSI claims it should never exceed 26db.
Additional USB ports and SD card slot on the left side
Like many netbooks, the AE1900 ships with and is designed to run Windows XP Home Edition. XP is designed to be pointed at with a mouse, not poked with a finger so MSI has cooked up a custom finger-friendly interface, ‘MSI Wind Touch’, which makes the whole system easier to operate with the touch interface.
It’s essentially just a program launcher filled with extra-large icons grouped into four categories: Work, Fun, Tool and Web. You can choose which installed programs you want to appear in the interface by entering the configuration mode and simply activating them from check boxes.
Of course, you’re not forced to use the touchscreen: A full-size low-profile keyboard and mouse are provided, both of which are, alas, of the wired USB variety. You’ll probably find the screen is good enough for you not to need the mouse, but using MSI’s on-screen keyboard software is nowhere near as easy to type on as the physical version. If it had just been a little bit narrower it would have been small enough to tuck away under the monitor’s feet to save space when not in use but, unfortunately, this is not the case.
The package comes with a get a decent bundle of applications, including Cyberlink multimedia software and some of MSI’s own rather bizarre games designed to show off the webcam by letting you shoot down aliens or control animated characters by moving your head around.
Various operational buttons on the right side
We found the touchscreen system pleasantly easy to use. If you sweep windows quickly around the screen, then you’ll notice a tiny lag, but in general it’s accurate, responsive and intuitive. Surfing Web pages is especially easy and fun using this method.
COMMENTS
Enough already
For the love of all that is holy can we give up on these Atom products with their crappy intel chipsets?
Give me Atom + ion or something with an ARM processor and enough gfx performance to render properly on a FullHD.
If I could buy a wall mountable PC with 40+ inch screen, inbuilt tuner and enough grunt to do full HD then I might get interested.
These sad little "almost good enough" products are really starting to get annoying.
Tired design
So someone found an Apple Cinema Display circa 2001 and thought "that's cool, that is" and stuck a PC on the back!
I hear a major new feature of Windows 7 is that it doesn't launch multiple copies of applications. (sarcasm).
The gap is getting wider.
@Anonymous Coward 13:37 GMT
"The GMA-500 does not support Atom"
Look at the specs of:
Sony's VAIO P series,
Fujitsu's Lifebook U820,
ASUStek's Eee PC 1101HA,
Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 and Inspiron Mini 12,
Acer's Aspire One 751,[25] ,
ASUStek's EeePC T91 tablet
...For examples of an Atom paired with GMA 500
"GMA 950 consumes about 22w"
I hope it doesn't, i don't have the specs to hand but that doesn't sound right at all, can anyone verify?
what use is idle power ! ,fully loaded and productive tested metrics are whats needed
"But the amazing thing is that the idle power draw of the HD 5870 has been reduced to a mere 27W."
whats the point of stressing "idle power draw" if its running idle its not working for you and so not werth turning on in the forst place....
the only No's that matter is fully loaded WORKING device power draw, and if it not got a 330 in there its not werth the money.....
now if you were talking about a confirmed ARM NEON equiped Cortex- A8 or 2GHz Capable A9 dual cpu dual-NEON peak performance of 4000 DMIPS while consuming less than 250mW per CPU then we might be getting somewere as regards smooth High Profile@Level4.1 720P/1080P
http://www.arm.com/news/25922.html
as a more general baseline on a full real devs/consumer PCB, and evolving Firmware/SW
(remember "Efika" and 'Efika MX' Are two totally seperate PCB, one a PPC G3 ,discontinued, one the arm i.MX515 )
Matt Sealey,Developer Relations,Product Development Analyst
for Genesi said of their 'Efika MX' Open Client, Freescale i.MX515 (ARM Cortex-A8/NEON 800MHz) board
"BTW Open Client power consumption running Citrix is 5W maximum, tested using a Kill-A-Watt.
I've not been able to try out any video decoding yet, and again this is before any advanced power management has been enabled."
"the chip is running at top speed and the backlight is turned on full.. You can expect some very decent power savings across the board once the software is more mature."
"for instance Peter Czanik (czp) Jul 13, 2009 said
"I just measured the power consumption of my iMX515 based EFIKA system - display device is included. It also has 4x more RAM and 2x the MHz of the original EFIKA, but no HDD, just a larger SD card. Power consumption is 9W with the bundled LCD turned on. A 2.5" USB HDD add one more Watt and an USB Ethernet adapter another one. When the LCD turns off, it spares 2-3W.
"
"
fully loaded and doing something actually useful is a lot better than any idle power metric, so stop using that or at least include a basic fully loaded metric to compare against please paul.... even if its only an initial test to get the feel using the tested unit using a genric Kill-A-Watt ...
Can I be a designer...
..Why not add a wireless mouse and keyboard and attach a simply mount so that they (at least the keyboard) can be put out of the way when not in the use.
