Samsung on Tuesday announced its new Series 7 and Series 5 All-in-One (AIO) PCs designed to run Windows 8 when the OS is launched later this year.
The PCs have high-resolution, 10-point touchscreens, as well as slim bezel displays, metal bases, and third-generation Intel Core processors.
The displays also have five hand gesture recognition features that work when the user is up to three feet away.
Samsung’s new AIO PCs will be available in late October for between US$750 and $1,700.
Samsung “builds nice-looking products, but they have never been much of a force in [the PC] market,” Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.
The AIO Devices’ Specs
Samsung’s Series 5 AIO PCs have 21-inch screens, 500 GB hard drives and Intel Core i3-3220T CPUs, as well as Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics processing units (GPUs).
The Series 7 AIO PC comes with a 23-inch or a 27-inch screen. The former has an Intel Core i5-3470T CPU and an Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU, and the latter an Intel Core i7-3770T CPU and an AMD Radeon HD 7850M GPU. Both have a 1 TB hard drive.
All the AIO PCs have screens with 1,920 by 1,080 pixel resolution. For connectivity, they all support Gbit Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth. All three have three USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI in/out port, an Ethernet port, and a 3-in-1 multicard slot. In addition to gesture recognition and touchscreen, they accept input from a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Hand gestures include a flick of the wrist from up to three feet away, swipes in either direction from a distance, rotating the palm clockwise or anticlockwise, closing the hand, and waving the hand.
The Series 5 AIO PC was designed to serve as a kitchen PC, Samsung said. It has a keyboard and mouse that fit in between the legs of its base so it takes up less counter space, and its screen is slightly smaller than that of its Series 7 counterparts.
Another Nibble of the Apple
The Samsung AIO PCs will come preloaded with the company’s own S Launcher widget, according to Mashable.
This replicates the functions of the old start button in Microsoft Windows, which Windows 8 did away with.
However, the widget looks a lot like the dock that Apple has used in its Mac OS X operating system for years, according to Boy Genius Report.
“They look almost identical,” Enderle agreed.
Although Samsung was recently ruled to have infringed Apple’s patents with its smartphones, it’s “doubtful” that Samsung will pull the widget because “Microsoft backs them up on Windows, and Microsoft is both cross-licensed with Apple and has a significant patent portfolio,” Enderle opined. “Still, I doubt even Microsoft will be that comfortable with how close this looks to a Mac.”
A Samsung spokesperson was not immediately available to provide further details.
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