Product Reviews

The Eee PC's cheap and cheerful assault on the traditional notebook hierarchy has prompted a raft of copycat concept laptop designs in recent months, but few desktop PC manufacturers have attempted the same thing. We were therefore intrigued when MSI sent us its Titan 700, a PC which couldn't be more different from its rather ill-fitting choice of name: it's like the Eee PC of desktops - but not as good.

At just £200 we weren't surprised to find it comes without an operating system; this may not suit some, and for those happy to use Linux it's a cost-cutter. All the drivers for getting it up and running in Windows XP come on a bundled CD, so if you do choose that route you're not left in the lurch either.

Whether you'd actually be wise to go for XP is a different question, though. The Titan keeps the cost (and power consumption) to a minimum by opting for a low-power VIA C7-D processor. Despite running at an impressive-sounding 2GHz, it's certainly not one to compare with the usual desktop CPUs - the Titan scored just 0.36 in our benchmarks, on a par with the Eee PC 900 - but for basic single-task document editing and web browsing it's usable. Whether many people will be happy with a PC that packs a weaker punch than most ultraportable laptops is another matter.

To keep the size appealing (just 24cm in length, smaller than the average games console), MSI has opted for an external laptop-style power brick, but it's quite small as power supplies go. It can provide a maximum of 60W, but considering the CPU has a maximum thermal design power of just 20W, we didn't push the Titan close to that during our testing. At full load under XP we got a peak recording of 36W, and when idle this fell to an impressive 20W; this is a very economical PC indeed.

The absence of an internal power supply means it's not an overly noisy PC. There's a single fan drawing air out of the side

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of the case (or top if you sit it in the provided stand), but removing the lid and the drive caddy reveals quite a cramped interior. The mini-ITX motherboard has room for a single DDR2 slot, as well as an IDE and a SATA connection for the notebook hard disk and optical drive. They're all in use, so in terms of expansion the only real addition you can make is via the PCI slot down one edge, and that's limited to half-height add-in cards - a wireless adapter perhaps.

That hard disk will hold 120GB of data, but you won't fill that as quickly as you might imagine, as despite its diminutive size this is certainly not intended to be a media PC. The meagre choice of VGA or S-Video shows up the Titan's low budget, and there are even two serial ports on the back - we're baffled as to why you'd need even one of those these days, particularly at the expense of far more useful ports such as DVI or eSATA. The manual helpfully suggests a serial mouse.

A Gigabit Ethernet socket, PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, three audio connectors and a pair of USB ports complete the rear panel. A further two USB ports sit on the front, along with headphone and microphone sockets, all behind a fairly flimsy mirrored door. But a greater issue is the door hiding the DVD drive, which doesn't even link to the drive's eject button; to insert a disc you'll need to squeeze your finger into the cove and push the button yourself.

But the biggest issue we have with the Titan is in wondering just who is going to buy it. The Eee PC shook up the laptop world because people genuinely needed and wanted an ultra-cheap portable to take on the road as an addition to their main home PC or laptop. How many people are crying out for something like the Titan?

It's far from quick enough to be used as a primary PC, and adding the cost of a monitor, peripherals and operating system brings it closer to the price of a fully-featured PC like the Zoostorm Core 2 Quad Q6600, which would obliterate the MSI in a benchmark race.

As a low-power, green option the MSI certainly has its merits, and it's smaller than most budget PCs available at the moment. But the compromises we're willing to accept in the quest for ever smaller laptops just don't apply to a PC that sits atop a desk, even if it is this diminutive. The lack of media outputs (and odd inclusion of legacy ports), the slightly creaky, cramped build and the sub-ultraportable level of performance mean we can't see the Titan living up to its name.