Shuttle has released a “barebone” version of their all-in-one touch screen mini PC the X50. The dual-core processor Intel Atom powered X50 is a 15.6 inch all-in-one PC with touchscreen and carry handle. All this comes in a shell that is only 36mm thick.
The X50 is great as a media center and can be mounted on the wall using the VESA readymount or the handle turns down to make a stand. It can be connected to your network via wireless or Gigabit ethernet and you can stream movies, music and pictures from a network server or from the Internet.
“Barebone” means that you decide for yourself which components should be installed in the All-in-One-PC. You need to buy a 2.5″ hard drive (traditional or SDD) and add some memory (between 512MB and 2GB DDR2), install them in the X50 and you are up and running.
What you do get from Shuttle is an X50 with either a black or white finish, an Intel Atom 330 dual-core processor (2x 1.6 GHz), 15.6″ touchscreen with a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, card reader, Gigabit-LAN, WLAN (Draft-N), 5 USB ports, stereo speakers, microphone and a fanless 65 Watt power supply.
The touchscreen display is powered by the Intel GMA 950, which is the same chip as you will find in many laptops, netbooks and even the older Mac Minis. The GMA 950 runs at 400MHz core and has DirectX 9 3D hardware acceleration. It shares up to 224MB of main memory.
Shuttle also provide a detailed installation guide to install the additional components. One thing to note is that the X50 doesn’t have a CD or DVD of any kind so your OS needs to be installed via a USB drive or via the network.
The Shuttle X50 Barebone is available from specialist retailers from the end of June 2009. Shuttle’s recommended retail price is EUR 361 (approx. £307) excluding VAT.