Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"It's been a while since Shuttle outed their XPC X50 Barebones all-in-one, and so it's about time that they updated it. Rather than rework the case and change the color, the new Shuttle X50V2 Barebone has Intel's latest Atom D510 processor, paired with the NM10 Express Chipset, but also gets completely passive cooling and halved power consumption."

I like the idea of these all in one touchscreen PC's but I just have no idea where I would use one, except perhaps in the kitchen as media streamer. Either way, there must be a market for them as Shuttle have upgraded the X50 with the X50V2. It's the same case with a new CPU, increased memory capacity, more ports, and it is fanless making it virtually silent. The price of $484 (pre-tax) is a little high considering you still need to add memory and a hard drive in to it, however I guess you're paying for the convenience of a nice small, all in one unit. So do you have or want a PC like this? I'm interested to know what and where you would use it in your home.

"It’s time to put that credit card back in your wallet, if you’re thinking about buying an HD capable nettop to function as your living room’s HTPC. Shuttle has just announced that they will be debuting the Shuttle Barebone XS35 Mini-PC, featuring Intel’s Atom D510 1.6Ghz dual core processor and NVIDIA GT218 (ION 2) graphics, at CeBIT 2010 (release date: Q2 2010)."

I am sure that we are going to see more of these being announced in the coming weeks. While the Atom still will not break any speed records, a dual core machine with HD acceleration, boosted video processing and the capability of light gaming should make this a very attractive option. Surprisingly, this nettop is even passively cooled! Hopefully the price will be consistent with other nettops making it the defacto choice for someone who really just needs a computer that will handle their everyday tasks for a pittance of power.

"In fact, if this works," the Shuttle rep continued, "it could spark a revolution in laptop upgradability. You drop $2000 on a high-end laptop, and it doesn't matter, because in a year the new laptop platform comes out, and you take it to a shop to upgrade for a few hundred bucks."

Desktops have always held an advantage over laptops owing to their modular design. Need a better graphics card? No problem! Want more internal storage? Here you go! Laptops, notebooks, netbooks, whatever you want to call them, have largely been computers that you leave as is. Sure, there have been some modest attempts at making them upgradable, like being able to swap the CPU, hard drive, or upgrade the memory, but Shuttle appears to be taking the idea to the extreme. In some ways, I like the idea, as it will let you do incremental upgrades on your laptop, and their design appears to be not too bulky, at least compared to other largish notebooks. But of course, there is a but! Over time, I have found that because of the infrastructure change that seems to happen every couple of years, I tend to buy new computers, instead of upgrade my existing one. For example, switching from a Core 2 Duo system to a Core i7 would also require a new CPU, memory and motherboard. If I go that far, I might as well get a new baby!

"A reasonable 15.6 touchscreen, with a 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution, is the X50's dominant feature, although the sizeable handle up top comes a close second. Powering the X50 is a dual-core, 1.6GHz, Intel Atom 330 accompanied by 1GB of RAM - with 2GB supported - a 160GB hard drive and Intel's older 945G chipset."

The whole netbook craze has definately spilled over into the desktop market full force. Shuttle is getting into the game with the X50, though there doesn't appear to be anything unique about it aside from the carrying handle. I'm all for low power desktops since most of us probably don't need powerful CPUs for regular web surfing, email and IM, but I fail to see the need for a carrying handle. If you're going to cart a PC around the house, netbooks are quickly growing in size with some touting 12" displays and a battery means you're not limited to the nearest power outlet. I just don't see being able to swing a nettop around the house as compelling enough to choose Shuttle over any other nettop out there.