Habey’s no stranger to the diminutive PC arena , but the latest from the company just might be the one you’ve been scouting. If you’ve been scouting a mini PC that’s dead-silent, that is. The BIS-6620 is described as “an ultra-compact fanless and noiseless PC platform based on the Intel Atom Z510 processor,” measuring just 4.5- x 4.5- x 1.5-inches and offering up GMA 500 graphics, 1080p hardware decoding, a single DDR2 SODIMM memory slot, room for a 1.8-inch (iPod classic-sized), a few USB 2.0 sockets, integrated SD / CF card readers, gigabit Ethernet port, an optional WiFi module and your choice of OS (Windows XP Embedded, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Linux). There’s a fair chance this could double as a simplistic media player in your cramped studio apartment, and at just $299.99 at NewEgg, you won’t be shattering the bank in the process.

While it doesn’t seem to be available to order yet, ASUS’ first Pine Trail-equipped nettop is close enough to release that the Taiwanese manufacturer has let some of its specs loose already. What we know so far is that it’ll come with Intel’s Atom D410 CPU, 802.11b/g/n wireless, six USB ports, a 5-in-1 card reader, and a webcam — all while keeping Windows XP’s dreams of immortality alive. The 1610 will be a 15.6-inch all-in-one, like its predecessor , with the T model offering optional touchscreen functionality. It’s hard to argue that the new Atoms offer any great performance gains , but then ASUS is not expected to charge any premium relative to its older models, making this a desirable, albeit incremental, upgrade. [Thanks, Sal] ASUS Eee Top ET1610PT with Atom D410 shows up in online support pages originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

In all the CES madness , we somehow missed MSI’s previously-teased Wind Box DE220. Fortunately, Liliputing didn’t; the site’s just now putting up impressions and along with it some specs of the novel-sized nettop. It’s packing Pinetrail for starters, in the form of a single-core Atom D410 or dual-core D510. Also included are an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, up to 1TB HDD / 4GB memory, 802.11b/g/n, and Windows 7 home premium. Mum’s the word on price or release date, but from what we’ve seen, you can at least start decorating around its known color options: blue, red, and black.

Our interest in the ASUS Eee Keyboard has thoroughly waned as the Atom N270-based internals have aged with time, but the new Cross PC U150 from China’s Great Wall puts a little juice back into the remixed C64 form factor with the addition of NVIDIA Ion graphics. Sadly there’s no battery or wireless HD out, and it doesn’t support dual displays — the internal 5-inch touchscreen on the right shuts off when an external monitor is connected — so we’re not sold on this guy as a lap-based HTPC, but we’re willing to check it out. Anyone got 3888 Yuan ($570) and an extra ticket to China? Great Wall Cross PC U150 Ion-izes the Eee Keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Good news, everybody! If you’re looking into one of Asus’s Eee Box 1501 nettops but weren’t exactly into the built-in DVD burner, well, better days may be ahead. It looks like a new version of the 1501 is on its way, this time packing Blu-ray. In case you’ve forgotten the specs, the Eee Box 1501 packs NVIDIA’s Ion chipset, an Intel Atom 330 dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and an HDMI port for good measure. There’s no official word on this yet, but the release of the Blu-ray boasting updated nettop looks likely for Switzerland in the near future, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more information. Asus Eee Box 1501 with Blu-ray on its way to Switzerland originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

ASUS and Acer have made sure we’d never have a shortage of Ion nettops, but it appears Mouse Computer is sneaking through the cracks with its Lm-mini20. Unlike the company’s CD drive packing netbook , there isn’t really much of note here. The 34800 yen ($376) version has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 160GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and NVIDIA ION graphics. And you can configure the standing mini-desktop to your hearts content with a larger hard drive and more RAM. We can’t exactly say we are waiting for this little guy to hit the U.S.

There ain’t much to go on just yet, but one thing’s for certain: MSI will be unveiling a trio of new machines at CES in just a few weeks. Over on the Wind Top side, it’ll be introducing the all-new AP1920 all-in-one PC, which will measure in at 35mm thick and sport an 18.5-inch display, Atom D510 or D410 CPU and a power-sipping attitude. The nettop lovers will be thrilled to know that a new duo of mini PCs will also get unwrapped, as the Wind Box DC500 and DE220 step in with Intel’s newest Pine Trail processors and a whole slew of companion components that we’re still waiting to hear more on. Hey, we told you it was just a tease. MSI teases Wind Top AP1920, Wind Box DE220 and DC500 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

You don’t need booming sales figures to tell you that netbooks have taken over the world — the mobile computing world, at least. Their screenless and battery-free brethren, however, have yet to find quite the same success. Nettops are great tiny little machines but in general they’ve been under-powered and, while people love eking out another hour or two of battery life on the road, few sadly care whether their desktop computers pull down 17 or 71 watts of juice. Still, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a fully-functional computer that’s half the size of a Wii — especially when it can manage 1080p output over HDMI. Viewsonic’s VOT132, with its Ion graphics and trick magnetic DVD drive, is tiny, efficient, and powerful

Get ready for the next generation of netbooks and nettops: Intel’s just officially announced the Pine Trail Atom N450, D410, and D510, along with the NM10 Express chipset, and we should see over 80 machines with the 45-nanometer chips at CES 2010 . Nothing too surprising about the 1.66GHz chips themselves, which integrate the memory controller and Intel graphics directly onto the CPU die : the N450 is targeted at netbooks, while the single-core D410 and dual-core D510 are designed for nettops, and each chip should use about 20 percent less power than its predecessor. That was borne out in our review of the N450-based ASUS Eee PC 1005PE , which got 10 hours of battery life in regular use, but unfortunately we didn’t experience any performance improvements over the familiar N270 and N280. That jibes with other reports we’ve heard , but we’ll wait to test some more machines before we break out the frowny face permanently — for now, check out the full press release below. Continue reading Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:01:00 EST.

We don’t get it. At all. That said, we’re totally enamored with this Artopz Minitopz, which manages to both be an impressively-specced Atom and Ion-based nettop , and simultaneously a completly confounding piece of “art.” Apparently it’s supposed to be perceived as a lamp, but we’d say that stretches the limits of imagination. But it stretches them in a good way, that’s all we’re saying. Oh, and the Minitopz costs $2,250, just in case you thought you’d penetrated this fog of luxurious gadget oddity to the point of pulling out a wallet. Maybe the video after the break will help clear some things up