MSI Wind Top AE1900 18.5-inch Touchscreen All-In-One Nettop PC

Jul 6 2009 - The MSI Wind Top AE1900-10SUS differs from many other all-in-one nettops because it bypasses the Windows XP operating system for Vista so that it can have improved memory and hard drive capacities. This combined with the very response 18.5-inch touchscreen and internal DVD burner make it one of the better equipped nettops on the market. With its $600 price tag, it quickly approaches the low cost all-in-one desktops featuring real laptop components with improved performance and larger screens. Still, it does make for a nice compact touchscreen web station.

Jul 6 2009 - The MSI Wind Top AE1900-10SUS differs from most of the other Intel Atom based nettop systems in several ways. First, they use the Atom N330 dual core processor that gives it a slight advantage when multitasking. Second, they elected to use the Vista Basic operating system to get around the Windows XP licensing agreement with its hardware provisions. This means that MSI was able to include more memory and hard drive space than the standard 1GB and 160GB limits.

This puts the performance and features above the average nettop computer but it still falls well behind a traditional all-in-one desktop computer that uses laptop processors. The Vista operating system is just a little too resource intensive to make the system functional for much beyond standard web browsing and productivity software even with the extra memory and drive space. The $600 price tag also brings it very close to the low end laptop based all-in-ones.

What saves the MSI Wind Top AE1900 is the 18.5-inch touchscreen display. The Vista operating system doesn't have much in terms of touchscreen functionality, but MSI adds their own Wind Touch software for quick and easy launching of standard applications. This is great for those not too familiar with the standard Windows interface but it is frustrating for those who would do simple tasks such as adding more programs to the launch interface.

The Wind Top AE1900 is a product that is a bit early. While they have done a good job with the Wind Touch application, the system would be much better served with a version of Windows 7 installed with its native touchscreen interface. Performance is also better with Windows 7 than the Vista operating system. This combined with the price may make it best to wait a while before taking the plunge on a touchscreen nettop such as this.