Shuttle's Atom-powered mini desktop gets a price: $189

The Shuttle X27, which we reported on last week, is small physically. Turns out, so is the price.

(Credit: Shuttle)

Shuttle let us know Thursday that the miniscule desktop will start at $189--sans monitor, and peripherals, like all Shuttle PCs. It will be available in mid-September.

Now, $189 isn't the cheapest PC Shuttle makes. But that's the lowest price we've seen thus far in the emerging Nettop category, or small desktop PCs bearing Intel's low-power Atom processor.

The Eee Box from Asus, another Nettop, goes for $350. CherryPal, a newcomer to the space, makes a tiny desktop that keeps most data in the cloud, has a Freescale processor, and is to sell for $249.

Cheap is good, but as my colleague Rich Brown points out, is there actually a large market for these small, low-power PCs when you can get a full-fledged desktop for about the same price?

Shuttle plays to the nichiest of niche markets--people who love Linux--so that's probably not its biggest concern. But the company is clearly hoping PCs that can cut down their power usage and space, as it promises with the X27, will catch on.

[nachurboy]

For that price, I'd rather get a Eee laptop, which at least comes with a display and input device. These mini-desktop systems aren't powerful enough to be a HTPC, isn't very expandable to replace a full desktop, and isn't as useful as a laptop to use as a terminal, since you'll have to pay for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse anyway. That means more cables, connections, clutter, which is the main reason for buying a mini-desktop, to remove clutter and free up desk space.

[dblastic1231]

I see this as a possible computer to attach to my plasma tv, if it has the righ hookups. I don't want a giant desktop to sit next to the cable box, dvd player, etc...

I'm definitely interested.

[mmmyeah]

Um, how come the cherry pal website is down? Very suspicious.

[heapmaster]

I agree with the last post, odd, where did cherrypals site go? Maybe the company went under...well i saw a company that wont. You want a green pc, look no further then here, they are coming out with a green PC, if not the greenest PC in the world....besides the few watts the device takes, the rest runs off of solar power. Check it out here http://www.agreenpc.com

The device you use only sucks up about 5-6 watts of power, you should check it out and they wont go out of business.

[silenthorn]

Some people want a quiet HTPC, some people are looking to free up desktop space. Personally, I'm just looking to cut down on heat, noise, and power consumption. I have a big, reasonably powered desktop, but I don't need that power anymore and I'd like something that I can run 24/7 and not feel guilty about it.

There's not much in this market segment right now, and I'm hoping that will change. There are high-end PC's, cheap PC's (that still consume too much power for my taste), and ultra low-power PC's like the Eee box and Wind PC that skimp on features to cut back on price and power consumption. What I'd like to see is a computer based around the Atom (or similar ultra low power cpu and chipset), but with some nicer features (optical drive, faster hard drive, dual monitor support, better onboard graphics than the intel GMA950). I know such a PC would consume a little more power, but I wouldn't mind seeing something in the 60W range. My dell XPS m1330 has a dual-core processor, dvd burner, and onboard nvidia graphics and manages to consume ~30W (while powering a display and wifi). Could we see something like this in a desktop?

The Eee box has some potential, but I'd like a digital audio out and some customizeability (more RAM and a faster HDD, possibly an optical drive). The barebones MSI Wind PC is interesting because it's so customizeable, but I'd like to see DVI. I've also thought about building my own, but right now there's only one commercially available motherboard for the Intel Atom, and it also lacks DVI. I can't wait to see more specs on the X27 and any other of these net PCs.