VIA unveils Android-based £32 Raspberry Pi rival

[snapman]

Following in the footsteps of the low-cost Raspberry Pi ARM-based Linux device, VIA Technologies has announced a single-board computer running the Android platform that is expected to sell for just £32.

Set to be available from July, the APC is based on an 800MHz WonderMedia ARM processor chip and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

The APC is larger than the much sought-after Raspberry Pi, being designed to fit a new VIA form factor called Neo-ITX that is half the area of a compact Mini-ITX PC motherboard.

It ships with 512MB DDR3 memory and 2GB Flash storage, plus four USB ports, Ethernet, a microSD slot, and VGA and HDMI outputs, making the APC suitable to form the basis of a low-cost media player device.

The version of Android in the APC is also a custom build that has been optimised for keyboard and mouse input. It also comes with a browser and a selection of pre-installed apps, according to VIA.

"APC brings the familiarity and convenience of Android to the PC at a $49 price point that will open up exciting new markets and applications,"said VIA's vice president of marketing, Richard Brown.

"Like a bicycle for your mind, APC will enable more people than ever before to explore the vast online universe."

However, the APC is not a direct rival for the RaspBerry Pi, which is intended as an educational device to help build programming skills among students, and hence includes developer tools alongside its stripped-down operating system.

The Raspberry Pi also features a connector that exposes some general purpose I/O functions, allowing students or developers to interface to other circuits and build projects around the device, capabilities not included in VIA's APC.

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[little_pob]

The APC's HDMI output is restricted to 720p, but the processor supports 1080p, and it's currently not known if the bootloader is open or not (for running Honeycomb, ICS, or another, non-android *nix OS).

On the plus side it has VGA out, 4x USB and can be fitted in ITX and mATX cases without modification.

 

[audiobookman]

this looks like a ideal device for a in car computer, something i looked into a while ago but was put of with the slow boot times and costs of mainboards etc.
if it can take a generic touch screen then i know where my money / time is going in july...

 

[turner brown]

for car pc best is itx mate
if you use 512 ram and hibernate you can boot to straight to frontend in about 15 seconds
ithe more ram the bigger the ram dump so increased boot time

 

[turner brown]

this looks like a ideal device for a in car computer, something i looked into a while ago but was put of with the slow boot times and costs of mainboards etc.
if it can take a generic touch screen then i know where my money / time is going in july...

also itx give advantages when it comes to power for incar pc as you can set autostart up and shutdown and so on
the m2-atx or mini box power supplies are good and control all the start up and shut down