Shuttle introduces something old, something new

SHUTTLE HAD SEVERAL refreshed products on display at CeBIT and two new ones, a monitor and a rSFF (really Small Form Factor) chassis. Some of the refreshes were cosmetic while others had changes that went much deeper. In both cases, none of the unique Shuttle goodness was lost in the shuffle.

First the new chassis, the X100 line. This is a blend of laptop components and desktop parts, all in a very small box. It uses a standard 3.5" HD rather than the 2.5" laptop drives commonly found in these machines, so you get more storage, faster drives and a lower cost. It uses an MXM slot instead of a PCIe so your graphics choices will be a little more limited, but still upgradable. The CPU is of course a Yonah of one stripe or other.

The other new part is a 19" monitor. Not much hugely exciting to say about this, it is a 1280*1024 panel with an 8MS response time. It still pivots like the older 17" version, but lacks the good looking aluminum rail that surrounds its smaller sibling. Not bad, but not a standout either.

What is more of a standout is the new front panel for the P Series chassis. The old one was nice and functional, and the new one cleans things up quite a bit. The buttons and indicators are moved to the right side, giving the front a sleek black metal face.

There are two models of the new P chassis, the SD37P2 and the and it's Socket M2 counterpart. They support two chips, Conroe and the Rev F A64, that are not out yet, so don't look for these boxes until June at the earliest. Both of new P2s have 350W PSUs.

That brings us to the last find of the day, the M2000, a refresh of the M1000 media center PC. Basically this one adds a new chipset, new CPU support and new NICs bringing it in to line with the VIIV requirements. If you have been living in a cave for the last few months, this means it gets a logo, some software, and a DRM infection.

Shuttle had a bunch of solid things to show this year, nothing earth-shattering, but no negatives either. They take little steps forward here and there, then follow it up with a huge leap of a new chassis. This was not the day for a huge leap, but look up, Computex is only a few months away. µ