Samsung

Samsung

Samsung

Samsung

There’s a new black cylindrical desktop in town, but unfortunately for fans of the nearly three-year-old Mac Pro, this one isn’t from Apple. Samsung’s “ArtPC Pulse” desktop, revealed today via Amazon listings, isn’t quite the PC version of the Mac Pro, but that description isn’t far off.

The port layout in particular is distinctly Mac Pro-esque, though not as high-end. It has four USB Type-A ports, one USB Type-C port, an audio jack, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and a power connector arranged vertically on its back. That power plug implies that, like the Mac Pro, the system saves some space on your floor with an internal power supply, which is a nice touch.

One major point of departure is the system’s top layer, which is apparently a 360-degree speaker from Harmon Kardon. The Mac Pro has an integrated speaker, but it’s definitely not a major selling point. Samsung is more interested in pushing the Pulse as an entertainment PC.

Aesthetic comparisons aside, the Pulse is aimed pretty squarely at the high end of the consumer market and not at the workstation market. Both models include quad-core Skylake Core i5-6400 and i7-6700 CPUs, which are solid performers but not replacements for the 6-, 8-, and 12-core CPUs that come with higher-end Mac Pros.

Fortunately, the pricing reflects that fact. The base model Core i5 Pulse costs $1,200, and the high-end Core i7 model costs $1,600. The base model includes 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD, while the high-end system bumps that to 16GB of RAM and adds a separate 1TB 5400RPM HDD for additional file storage. Both models include a Radeon RX 460 GPU with 2GB of RAM, an entry-level card which should be suitable for 1080p gaming but not 4K gaming or VR. The Amazon listings don’t mention Wi-Fi or Bluetooth specs, though we assume that they’re included (there’s a button for Bluetooth pairing on the back of the machine above the ports). We’ll update the article if we can find out more.

Perhaps because it doesn’t have quite as much stuff inside it, the Pulse is lighter and slimmer than the Mac Pro—7.4 pounds and 5.5 inches in diameter compared to 11 pounds and 6.6 inches for the Pro. The Pulse's speaker setup makes it slightly taller at 10.7 inches (compared to 9.9 inches).

Samsung is also doing things right on the software side—the Pulse is a Microsoft “Signature Edition” PC, which means a relatively clean install of Windows 10 with few-if-any extraneous pre-installed apps. It’s a nice departure from the company’s Android phones, which come weighed down with Samsung apps that mostly duplicate the functionality of the mandatory Google apps.

Finally, the Pulse has an interesting feature that we won’t know more about until we see official Samsung product pages. You can apparently customize the system with “expansion modules” that help make up for the lack of space inside the case. The only module we’re aware of is the 1TB hard drive module, which comes with the $1,600 model, but we’re not sure what the modules look like, what they’ll be able to do, who can make them other than Samsung, or how many of them will be available.

The Pulse is one of a few different experiments the PC OEMs are doing right now. HP has also made a cylindrical-ish speaker-turned-PC in its Pavilion Wave, and that company’s Elite Slice takes the “modular” idea to its logical extreme. Tightly integrated systems like mini PCs and all-in-ones are one of the few segments of the desktop market that’s growing, so expect there to be more experimentation here as time goes on.

You can pre-order the Pulse now if you want, and it will actually be available on October 28.

Listing image by Samsung