SLJ Reviews the MSI Wind Top All-in-one touchscreen PC

Among the scads of curious new computing permutations out there, the MSI Wind Top is among the most interesting multitasking mongrels I’ve tested to date.

Reminiscent of the second gen Apple iMac, the Wind Top is a beautiful machine with its PC innards neatly hidden behind a stylish, 18.5-inch diagonal, 6:9 widescreen WXGA display that’s under two inches thick. With its sleek, glassy design, it looks like a PC twice as expensive as it really is. The low cost is made possible, in part, by the fact that it’s not a high-performance computer. The model I tested came loaded with Windows XP Home Edition driven by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom 230 processor—a low-power CPU similar to what’s found in many netbooks.

The tradeoff for that ecofriendly efficiency? It’s a bit sluggish at times, especially when opening applications. The resistive touchscreen is another troubling wrinkle in this undeniably unique device. MSI’s supplementary desktop menu “Wind Touch” lets you launch applications by tapping oversized icons with your finger or the provided stylus. While young children or freehand artists might appreciate that touchscreen functionality, give me a mouse for routine navigation.

Superfluous touchscreen aside, the Wind Top has a few, more practical amenities you might not expect in a low-cost machine, including a built-in 1.3 mega-pixel webcam, a 160-GB hard drive, and a DVD burner. I slapped a movie into that vertical DVD tray and it played smoothly and looked great on the widescreen display. But the built-in SRS surround-sound speakers can’t supply room-filling sound. Too bad because the handsome device would otherwise double nicely as a media platform. But perhaps that’s expecting a bit much from a PC as power-stingy as the Wind Top. After all, it draws only 45 watts of juice at full load, is practically silent, and puts out very little heat.

While this machine isn’t a good fit for classrooms, casual computer users who also appreciate style should consider the slick and inexpensive MSI Wind Top.