Micro PCs

[Frank]

With the introduction of the Pico-ITX platform, you can now build a general PC that is only half the size of a 5 1/4" drive:

You can see a video here.


Of course, you can buy a box with an ARM processor that runs Linux and is even smaller, but this one runs anything a full-fledged PC could as well, except demanding 3D games. It would do very well in almost any other consumer application, and it would most likely be cheaper as well.

 

[digitalwanderer]

That is just so freaking cute, I want!

 

[Skrying]

Even the fastest of VIA processors are way to slow, a mild surfing box maybe, but there are better systems for that. This is "neat" but pointless really.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Be a good glovebox PC for mp3s and such.

 

[Frank]

Well, it is plenty of fast enough for surfing, MSN, Office and simple (3D) games (I sold 600 MHz EPIAs to customers for those things a few years ago, and they work well), and it has a build-in MPeg-2/4 and WMV9 decoder. What more do you want?

Although the Vista drivers aren't ready yet, so you're stuck with using XP or Linux for the moment.

 

[Skrying]

An Asus Eee can do all the same things plus go mobile when you need, hands down winner.

 

[Frank]

The Asus Eee notebook:

900 MHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, 7" LCD display, 2-8 GB Flash for storage, only a custom Linux as OS for now (Windows will be supported in the future). Price about the same as the Pico-ITX box: around $ 300.

Very cool as well! I want one of both!

 

[Frank]

Btw, this thread was meant to show what is available on the Micro PC front, so all other contributions are highly appreciated.

 

[Blazkowicz]

that kind of VIA PC is exactly what I'd want to build, though with a 12V DC-DC PSU.
I want to experiment with low power computing and it could allow a good use of a solar panel, battery, can antenna. I would use a free 40GB laptop drive.

the pricing I can find looks outrageous though (328 euros), I guess I'll be doing something with that mini ITX board instead http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00063109.html

now missing is a 100€, 14" 1024x768, low power OLED screen. When can we get such things?

 

[Frank]

The pricing will go down in a month or so, as they only hit the market a few days ago. And it already has a 12 V DC-DC PSU out of the box, so those alternative power options work right away.

For the display: it's not too hard to hook up a cheap 320 * 240 PDA screen, but anything bigger that you can easily carry around is still a bit of a problem. But then again: why bother? Use Putty or RDC instead, depending on your choice of OS.

 

[sunscar]

Another alternative...

Since the idea of the thread was to site some MicroPC options, here goes.

There's a write-up on the processor architecture there.

http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196520&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1091691&highlight=

And more here.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps...512X&nodeId=0162468rH3DgbNGrmC22FA&tid=tMGTpr

And one possible product may arrive from it.

http://www.i4u.com/article13980.html

 

[Zaphod]

that kind of VIA PC is exactly what I'd want to build, though with a 12V DC-DC PSU.

Probably nothing stopping you from using this one without the supplied power brick. The internal 'power supply' is DC-DC, so any 12V source with the right size pin and enough juice should do it.

 

[Richard]

People have been using nLite to get a cut-down version of Windows XP to work on the Eee PC. I've been using on my main desktop for years and the improvements are very noticeable; I shudder to think how huge nLite can be for these micro PCs.

I was thinking of picking up an Eee PC and install an nLited version of XP myself. For what I do a notebook proper is overkill but I do need to check up on mail and the web when I'm out of the house (and I hate cell phones).

And btw, the Apple mini could probably qualify and have more than enough perf for the role of a micro PC. A bit pricey though.

 

[epicstruggle]

Actually, this really looks interesting:
http://www.technovoyance.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88

 

[Frank]

It seems that the only places where those Asus Eee PCs are available are in the US, in shops like NewEgg that don't ship international, and in Taiwan, where you can order the Chinese version through ebay. Everywhere else they're sold out at the moment a shop receives a shipment, because of pre-order.

Edit: and it seems they want to introduce new models next month or so that also are available with MS Windows at no additional cost. I guess MS was pretty irritated that those Linux notebooks sell so great, and offered them a deal they cannot refuse.

 

[Frank]

I really dig that Asus eee pc. I'll have one friday to play with.

 

[Frank]

An interesting tidbit: on gathering.tweakers.net, the largest Dutch enthausiast computer and electronics site (they like to be regarded as a hacker site), the Asus eee PC is very popular, and about a quarter of the posts are about running Windows XP or even Vista on it.

All the people who do so, tell that they had made this very sweet nLite Windows setup, and that it was really cool, blazingly fast and took less than 200 MB of space, but after running Windows Update, it went up to 1.5-2 GB in space and slowed down quite some.


The interesting bit is, that there were no people telling them: "Well, so don't run Windows Update!" They all seem to see it as an essential part of any Windows configuration...

 

[Richard]

Meh, my desktop nLited version of Windows XP is < 140Mb and that's with all available Windows Update patches. Some hackers.

 

[Thorburn]

All the people who do so, tell that they had made this very sweet nLite Windows setup, and that it was really cool, blazingly fast and took less than 200 MB of space, but after running Windows Update, it went up to 1.5-2 GB in space and slowed down quite some.

Never had this problem myself, one of my friends does some amateur rocketry and built a small P3 based system + webcam into a rocket. We built a fully up to date XP SP2 + updates install with nLite which came to less than 200MB.

 

[Sxotty]

Look at mp3car of you like small pc's.