It’s not difficult to understand the appeal of all-in-one PCs. They look good, they take up little space and, if you don’t intend to use them for demanding tasks, they work. All of those benefits, of course, apply to the MSI Wind Top AE1900, a stylish little number with a very attractive price point.
From the front, it looks just like an unusually-styled widescreen monitor, with that clear plastic bezel surrounding it. In fact, you never really get an inkling that it fits a fully-functional computer until you get to either the rear or the left side.
To keep the price manageable, the AE1900 sports what are essentially netbook specs – a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 CPU (with a 512KB of L2 cache and a 533MHz frontside bus), integrated Intel GMA950 GPU, 160GB hard drive and 1GB of DDR2 memory. As you can tell, it’s a good enough system for regular office tasks and web browsing. Just don’t try playing any 3D games and you’ll be fine.
Display is very generous at 18.5-inch touchscreen and a native 1366 x 768 resolution. It also offers a good range of input slots along the sides (including a DVD writer), and offers both an ethernet port and 802.11n Wi-Fi for connectivity.
On the performance end, it’s a great second PC, especially for basic multimedia entertainment. For moderate uses, it works exceptionally well. DVD playback is particularly good, especially since the touchscreen is fun to use with the menu system. While it’s supposed to manage 720p videos, I suggest you don’t push it – results aren’t always pretty.
The AE1900 comes with Windows XP Home Edition and uses a custom touchscreen interface called MSI Wind Touch. The combo works well, though MSI’s onscreen keyboard is decidedly pretty bad. You can get rid of the mouse, but make sure to keep a physical keyboard handy.
Overall, the MSI Wind Top AE1900 is an attractive-looking touchscreen all-in-one. It’s easy to use and works well enough for basic requirements.
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