VIA Nano-ITX

Well I was hoping for more info from Cebit but there is some at least from Hexus and here
I am hoping these things become widley available at a decent price to make a car pc. I want to replace the standard sized radio cd player with a same sized form factor housing one of these and move it between vehicles.

What's people thoights on the form factor (12cmx12cm) and via's implementation?

Personally I would like to see them doing away with everything legacy - PATA connecters, mini-pci, PS-2 ports and serial com ports and replacing those with SATA, PCI-e, usb/firewire.
 
I toyed with this idea about a year ago, but VIA simply does not seem to actually want to get the product out.

My suggestion for a car pc is to buy an old laptop, stick it under the drivers seat and then mount an LCD. It will be cheaper, faster, and easier. I wanted to go the in dash nano route and drew up plans and all but it is just to silly.
 
Actually you can already buy one in Taiwan for quite a long time. There are systems designed to be put in the car audio slots.
 
I think it's pretty dope! Let's hear the $$ figures first tho... :O

in a FF like this it seems safe to eliminate some legacy ports.... USB and SATA seem so ideal, and not many people without cash/new gear are going to buy them i'd imagine. I mean, lots of techies will want them so surely they'll HAVE old gear, but why mate your IBM clicky keyboards to car-pcs? i imagine most will want to use wireless or at least lightweight, modern interfaces for such a pc. that would be pretty cool though, just to be an elitist jackass ;) have your super svelte system, all in the dash of your hottt 350Z, then pull up the big ol model-M clicky with ps/2 adapter... maybe one of the ones with the built-in trackball... ;) plug in a gimongous parallel-port LED display... 19" CRT on the dashboard... ^^;;;; ok maybe now we need a van,
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Meh, I'd rather pick up a Mac Mini, or even the Intel clone (I think made by AOpen?) of a Mac Mini, at least then it'd have some decent power in there to do something like...playback HD video.
 
A Cupid 3688 barebone with VIA's mainboard (1GHz C3 CPU) sold for NT$8,000 (about US$250). Of course you'd need some RAM, HD, and/or DVD drive. These may add another NT$8,000 to the price. Basically you get a small computer with perhaps less power than a Mac mini with about the same price. But the important thing is, you can put it on your car without much problem. And you really don't need HD video playback on your car... you probably won't have a large display on your car. :)

By the way, the Intel Mac mini is already out (although it costs a bit more). I think the Intel Mac mini is much better than the AOpen clone in value.
 
Fox5 said:
Meh, I'd rather pick up a Mac Mini, or even the Intel clone (I think made by AOpen?) of a Mac Mini, at least then it'd have some decent power in there to do something like...playback HD video.
People have been using them already. (The minipc's) Look at mp3car for more info about any of this stuff. A laptop still has many advantages like a battery so you can leave puter in standby when you turn off car for 3 hours and it is no big deal.
 
Doesn't sound too promising.

HAve you seen the micro-atx pentium M boards? They blow the Epia boards away. If someone made a nano formfactor for the P-M it too would utterly destroy the Via board. It is sad in my mind that Via is trying to move away from their mobo roots and into this b/c it limits them to niche and never allows them to breakout and sell tons of them. Of course the margins are much fatter I am sure.
 
Yeh agree - they need to do more than shrink down 3-5 years old tech.

I just like the tiny form factor and small power draw. It's not a replacement pc by any means but I want a multi media "pc" that can be used in a variety of applications like both cars and my boat in existing housing's. The key really is power as I need it for gps work on a smaller screen(probably 7 inch) off normal car betteries so hdtv output etc is a non issue. Intergrated TV or quailty sounds would be a bonus. I've had laptops through work and actually prefer desktops... then I can't "just do something" over the phone lol. I haven't looked at the intel based mini itx stuff much becuase they were too high power but there's new stuff coming so will keep both eyes open. i checked again the prices on ebay for 2nd hand lappies that use fairly standard parts so will keep checking that option.
 
There are some Mini-ITX P4 boards (17x17cm), with 865 or 915 chipsets. The price of the 865 board is reasonable (about US$120), the 915 one is expensive (about US$280). I don't know any Pentium-M Mini-ITX boards, but I think they can be easily made. Nano-ITX could be much more difficult because the CPU may have to be soldered on. Intel sells BGA packaged Pentium M, but I don't know anyone is doing a Nano-ITX board for Pentium M.
 
There are pentium-M based mini-itx systems boards and they use very little power. The performance per watt is much better. Even GPS software wont work well on a VIA now that many GPS programs have 3-d views, and let me tell you a 3d GPS program is mighty cool.
 
Back
Top