David Heath
Monday, 21 September 2009 19:12
Computers
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After a long history in monitors, ViewSonic has expanded their offering to include full PCs. Shipping with WinXP Home edition, this PC-in-a-monitor is definitely for the 'stylish' market.
The VPC100 is ViewSonic's first foray into computers after a 20-year history manufacturing a respected range of monitors and other "visual display products."
Open the VPC100 shipping box and you'll find just three major components – a flat-screen 18.5" monitor, mouse and keyboard (along with a quick-start guide and restore CD). That's it. Plug in the (strangely PS/2) keyboard and mouse, turn it on and you have a fully-functional PC.
Just 35mm deep, the display unit houses an Intel Atom-based processor, 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard disk and 1.3M pixel web cam.
Equipped with 802.11/b/g wireless and gigabit Ethernet, a writeable DVD unit, 4 x compact camera card reader and 4 free USB ports this wide-screen (1366 x 768) unit seems ideal for a variety of low-horsepower uses.
Unfortunately that describes the problem with this unit. Intel's Atom range of processors is intended for low-powered uses – Netbooks and the like are a typical application. The trade-off is in performance – it takes lots of electricity to be a blazingly fast Excel machine. This unit doesn't use much electricity.
On the contrary however, a web browser takes very little electricity; and this more than anything else defines the place for this unit – for those organisations reliant on cloud-based computing, this is an ideal solution.
This is also a Henry Ford device – "you can have it in any colour you like as long you like black."
