Interesting PC clone of the new iMac
- Thread starter electron
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upstatemike
Senior Member
I've been looking a Mini-PCs lately also; here are a couple I'm considering:
ewayco has several lower-cost tiny computers, in particular this $99.00 PC looks interesting.
Also, according to this article, Data Evolution has a sub $100 pc.
Both of these are low speed ~200-400 MHz computers, but if you have a low-overhead touch client like Housebot's (what I'm using), it's more than enough. For those with more demanding clients, you could use these a RDP clients (remote desktop, MS terminal server, etc.) as some are doing with the Nokia 770s back to a faster box.
If I can convince the "Chief Financial Officer"that we need a non-budgeted expenditure for R&D, I'll pick up one of these...
Terry
These look cool but how do you load an OS onto them without a CD drive? (Clueless about such things).
I've been looking a Mini-PCs lately also; here are a couple I'm considering:
ewayco has several lower-cost tiny computers, in particular this $99.00 PC looks interesting.
Also, according to this article, Data Evolution has a sub $100 pc.
Both of these are low speed ~200-400 MHz computers, but if you have a low-overhead touch client like Housebot's (what I'm using), it's more than enough. For those with more demanding clients, you could use these a RDP clients (remote desktop, MS terminal server, etc.) as some are doing with the Nokia 770s back to a faster box.
If I can convince the "Chief Financial Officer"
Terry
These look cool but how do you load an OS onto them without a CD drive? (Clueless about such things).
USB CD-ROM or flashdrive I'd assume.
Having run a few low-powered systems in my touchscreen controller adventures (I've been through a couple dozen touchscreen tablets so far and have eight in use at the house now), I have learned to be very leery of some of these processors - especially if the application in use involves graphics of any kind.
For example, 100Mhz Pentium processors and 300Mhz Transmeta processors worked okay for text-based web clients when I was using HomeSeer, but they were completely unacceptable as my interfaces became more graphical and were intolerable with recent MainLobby versions.
Of course, as an RDP client... that works pretty well even with CE systems... as long as graphics are at a minimum.
The touchscreen clients I'm currently using are Fujitsu 3500s and P600s. They're Pentium 500Mhz and 600Mhz systems and work pretty well as clients. I haven't found anything comparable for the money (yet).
I'm using the MiniPC as a "server" and audio source system (or will be soon).
My experience with it has been good... but not great. My conclusion is that the MOTD (Mobile on the Desktop) picture has a ways to go in terms of performance equivalency. Still, it'd be hard to beat the size and heat for the performance.
All that said, thanks for the links. I look forward to perusing them to see if there's a good MOTD alternative that I can put the processor and other components of my choice into.
For example, 100Mhz Pentium processors and 300Mhz Transmeta processors worked okay for text-based web clients when I was using HomeSeer, but they were completely unacceptable as my interfaces became more graphical and were intolerable with recent MainLobby versions.
Of course, as an RDP client... that works pretty well even with CE systems... as long as graphics are at a minimum.
The touchscreen clients I'm currently using are Fujitsu 3500s and P600s. They're Pentium 500Mhz and 600Mhz systems and work pretty well as clients. I haven't found anything comparable for the money (yet).
I'm using the MiniPC as a "server" and audio source system (or will be soon).
My experience with it has been good... but not great. My conclusion is that the MOTD (Mobile on the Desktop) picture has a ways to go in terms of performance equivalency. Still, it'd be hard to beat the size and heat for the performance.
All that said, thanks for the links. I look forward to perusing them to see if there's a good MOTD alternative that I can put the processor and other components of my choice into.
