Low power Android PC
 

I'm on the local makerspace email list and someone posted this up. Its not only undoubtedly efficient, but also really quite cheap. Personally I'd rather just go for a tablet, but some probably prefer this.

VIA launches $49 Android PC

http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploa...le-580x324.jpg

That's less than my 7 y.o. laptop!

I saw this too a couple days ago. It's a little underpowered for me, for a desktop. I use a tablet with a keyboard a lot (Asus Transformer) and fire up the real computer in the morning before work and in the evening after work..... and any time I want to watch a movie. For regular internet BS a tablet with a decent keyboard is the way to go. There is no substitute for a real computer for doing real work.

for $50 think of it as a really nice collection of ports to attach an arduino to for data loggin/home automation purposes. It's cheaper then the ethernet shield for the arduino and has a ton more functionality.

That's really neat. Somebody needs to preload that with Ubuntu, package it in a sleek case, bundle a keyboard and mouse, and sell it as a $100 mombox. Hook it up to an existing TV or monitor.

A few years back, we were seeing laptop chips in desktop applications. Now it's "tablet on desktop".

Also, notice that it has no fans or other moving parts. It will be completely silent.

"As for power consumption, it tops out at 13 watts under load and 4 watts when idle."

I've watched my netbook consume more power than that. ..this is with the inefficiencies of the power supply though too. I'm certain if I was just looking at the system board itself with identical components to what is shown here and excluded the power supply losses, display, and hard drive that I might be sitting within the same realm. I'm certain whatever display people would add to this would easily send the unit beyond the minuscule 14 watt consumption this uses. I'd imagine most of the power used by this thing are to convert the cell phone components on this device to interface with the audio, video, network, USB, HDMI, VGA, etc components.

For what it's worth, with my cell phone on full brightness, bluetooth on, wifi on, phone trasceiver ready, and using the wifi to receive an internet connection which watching Youtube, I calculated my cell phone to run at 2.547 watts. I couldn't come up with a way to load the phone up more than that and wasn't looking to overclock it. The phone gets a bit warm with the video and wifi going though.

Nifty little computer though.