Samsung Quietly Launches ArtPC Pulse, a Cylindrical Modular PC With 360-Degree Sound

With all the fires Samsung is currently fighting, it perhaps comes as no surprise it has decided to quietly unveil its latest launch - a compact modular desktop PC called the ArtPC Pulse. There is no denying the fact that desktop PCs have faced a decline in demand over last few years. Moreover, PC users have now started showing interest in assembling their own PCs using components of their choice. These reasons have forced desktop PC manufacturers to come out with modular PCs that allow users to customise components of their build as per their wish. And the latest to join this list is Samsung.

Now available for pre-orders via Amazon in the US, the Samsung ArtPC Pulse will become available from October 28. It has a form factor that's arguably similar to Apple's Mac Pro PC, with a full-metal cylindrical body design. It bears a 360-degree omni-directional speaker built by Harmon Kardon on board. The users can easily customise their unit with the help of expansion modules. In its Amazon listing of the product, the company has mentioned that an optional 1TB HDD module is available separately for the PC.

Samsung's compact desktop PC is 10.7-inch tall, 5.5-inch wide, and comes with circular ambient lighting. Currently, there are two configurations for the ArtPC Pulse listed on Amazon selling for $1,199 (roughly Rs. 80,000) and $1,600 (roughly Rs. 1.07 lakhs).

The cheaper configuration comes with 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor (Skylake), 8GB of DDR4 RAM, 2GB AMD Radeon RX 460 graphics card, a 256GB SSD, a USB Type-C port, and four other USB ports. The base model of the ArtPC Pulse further comes preloaded with Windows 10 home signature edition.

The $1,599 variant of the PC comes with 3.4GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SATA HDD apart from a 256GB SSD. This variant is 5.5-inch wide and 12.2-inch tall. Most of the other specification of this variant are same as that on the $1,199 variant.

The company has not mentioned the list of modules that will be available for the expansion of the desktop. Further, it has not been clarified which parts of the unit will be customisable. Therefore, we will have wait for official word from the company to see how much scope will be eventually available for customisation of the PC.