ViewSonic VPC100: iMac styling, netbook grunt?

By Stephen Withers
Friday, 03 July 2009 09:16

Opinion and Analysis

PC makers are gradually coming round to the flat, all-in-one styling pioneered by Apple's iMac. The latest manufacturer to follow suit is ViewSonic with its VPC100.

ViewSonic's VPC100 All-in-One PC picks up some of the styling and features of the iMac, but makes several sacrifices to achieve its relatively low price of $A899.

Where the low-end iMac has a 20in 1680 x 1050 pixel display, the VPC100 has an 18.5in 1366 x 768 panel.

Instead of a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, it has a 1.6GHz Atom N270.

Rather than 2G of memory and a 320G drive, the VPC100 comes with 1G of RAM and a 160G hard disk.

Even networking isn't on a par with the Apple product: although the VPC100 features Gigabit Ethernet, its wireless capability doesn't go past 802.11g, whereas Apple has offered 11n as standard for some time.

If, like me, you're not a fan of external power supplies that add to the clutter, you'll be disappointed to learn that the VPC100 lacks an internal PSU.

Speakers, microphone and camera (1.3 MP) are all built in, but there's no Bluetooth. The VPC100 does have an internal 8x DVD burner, though it is a tray-loading model rather than the more convenient slot loader used by Apple.

There is one area - apart from price where the VPC100 comes out ahead, so please read on.