If'S TRUE, DESKTOPS are fat, clumsy boxes that guzzle too much power just to meet daily computing needs and hence many of us buy laptops to save on space and power. Desktops have been the same boxy machines for ever but the time has come for a significant face-lift. With mobile platforms foraying into the desktop PC arena, newage desktops will be able to cut down on the flab by almost 50 percent. This month we reviewed the Zenith Smart Style PC.

It's a 17-inch Widescreen desktop PC that takes almost the same space as an 17 -inch LCD monitor, handles all your daily computing needs with a dual core processor and 1GB RAM and costs a little over Rs 20K. With almost 1/4th power consumption, these desktops make perfect sense for an office desk¬top upgrade as well.

Newer platforms and form-factors gaining ground
The Intel Atom processor has been a key driver for mini laptops and it's not too hard to guess that it shall also make its impact on desktops. The second installment of Atom is expected to be a dual-core chip clocked at 1.87 GHz lending enough horse power for daily computing needs. MSI has already announced plans of launching the desktop version of the WIND series and it consumes a maximum of 35W, 1/4th of any traditional desktop.

The fact that board vendors like ECS have already announced Atom-based products in the Indian market is a clear indication that the tech¬nology is easy to adopt and cheap to implement. ECS plans to first sell these Atom integrated boards to system integrators who can offer them in variants depending on appli¬cation and market requirements.

As mentioned earlier, the Zenith Smart Style PC is an excellent example of a hybrid between a desktop and a laptop. These hybricls have great potential for slimmer desktops without any compromise on performance.

Great option for an HTPC ...
The current 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip might not be exactly suited to handling HD content but the upcoming faster chips with higher cache and improved architecture should be able to handle Bluray pretty well thus, making great sense for an HTPC that's slim, quiet, cheap and power-efficient. With board manufacturers throwing in HDMI and DVI options along with optical audio, your ideal HTPC might not cost a bomb and will take very little parking space as well.

While Intel is currently offering Atom as a complete package with its own graphics controller, the possibility of Intel opening out to Nvidia for a board that offers integrated HD decoder makes for an even better possibility for HTPCs. Traditional desktops reserved for specific applications? With the advent of slimmer desktops, the bulky ones will be reserved for power users, over clockers and gamers requiring pure performance.

With vendors able to specifically target this segment of the market, it's good news for power users as they will be able to get desktop machines with performance-based features like faster video cards, beefy PSUs and enough storage and expandability options. Dell India is already offering excellent gaming desktops with performance, features and never before seen value in branded desktop PCs.