

VIA launches $49 Android PC - 11031a
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/via-launch-a-49-android-pc-20120522/

======
haberman
I just want an ARM box that I can run headless in my closet and keep on all
the time to use as a build bot.

First I bought a SheevaPlug (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug>) but
that fried itself before long.

Next I bought an Efika MX Smarttop (<https://www.genesi-
usa.com/store/details/11>), which works ok, but doesn't always boot reliably
(I boot it headless most of the time, so can never get to the bottom of why).

I wish I could jailbreak my Apple TV 3, because it's cheap and the form factor
is _perfect_ for this. But it's looking like it will be more difficult to
jailbreak than previous generations.

I just want something I can run Debian or Ubuntu on and _know_ that when I
restart it it's going to come back up. Any suggestions?

~~~
EwanToo
I'm using a beaglebone running Ubuntu, it's a brilliant little box, cost £55.

There's the pandaboard too, which is more powerful with hdmi output

~~~
haberman
Does it reliably boot headless? If it does I'll order one before the ink dries
on this comment.

~~~
EwanToo
Yes, it's been very reliable for me. It ships with angstrom Linux, but it's
trivial to install Ubuntu.

I've got it hosted in a collocation rack now, so it had better stay reliable
:-)

I've written a short blog post about it
<http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/956/my-60-arm-server>

~~~
angusgr
Out of interest, what does it cost to host one of these in a colo rack? I was
thinking about it as an alternative to my VPS.

(Apologies if you said this in blog post already, it's currently unavailable.)

~~~
hysan
Used Google cache to read the blog. This is what was written in the blog:

So, now it’s time to take it to the next level – I’ve paid for the beaglebone
to go into a colocation rack in Telehouse North, with a friendly colocation
company called Jump Networks who were happy to help out with the experiment,
and who only charge for £50 + VAT for installation and a very low monthly cost
for hosting the equipment, as little as £5 per month – perfect for an ARM
server.

------
fierarul
This is about the price-range I would like to see for a ChromeOS box.

Put it in a box I can hide behind a standard monitor, let me reuse the old
mouse and keyboard and I can finally throw away the Windows XP PC my in-laws
are using for Chrome and Freecell. And use 1/10th of the power.

~~~
nextparadigms
I'd rather pay more for a high-end Cortex A15-based ChromeBox. Browsing will
be very slow on an ARM11 chip, especially if you use it in "desktop mode",
which will make it feel even slower compared to using it in a mobile phone.
Also, it better have a good GPU, otherwise it won't even support resolutions
higher than 800x480 (this one might).

But I do think ChromeOS devices should be somewhere in the $200 price range
(or free with contract if you want LTE and plan on using it on the go).

~~~
iRobot
In 1989 I ran a Unix system with 1000 users on hardware less powerful than
this, why this kind of horse power cannot run something as simple as a web
browser says more about the inefficiencies inherent in current operating
systems and programming methods than they do about the hardware.

~~~
mjb
> as simple as a web browser says more about the inefficiencies inherent in
> current operating systems and programming methods than they do about the
> hardware.

No. This is simply not true, at least at the extreme you are suggesting.

What I have open on my quad-core 8GB RAM desktop right now: two Eclipse
sessions; One emacs server, with about 20 client windows; Firefox, with 30+
tabs; 20 or so console sessions; five PDFs of documentation; an IRC client; an
image viewer and a Jabber client. All of this is spread over two big monitors,
with antialiased fonts, fast scrolling, lots of undo history and all sorts of
good things.

The truth is that expectations have changed. Say all you want about having
1000 users on a single core, but users today are getting a much richer
environment, and capabilities that we only could have dreamed of twenty years
ago. This isn't waste or inefficiency, it's using what we have.

Web browsers are also far from simple. High resolution graphics, interactive
sites, multiple format support, dynamic content loading, antialiased fonts and
all these other things do add up. Compare that to what a user was doing on a
tiny slice of a machine 20 years ago. I'd call it progress.

~~~
iRobot
<http://www.menuetos.net/>

~~~
anthonyb
Now go read the hardware compatibility list:
<http://www.menuetos.net/hwc.txt>. It only apparently supports 4 network
cards, 2 audio cards and a handful of video cards, and all of them are very
old tech.

It's essentially a niche operating system, and isn't going to do 1/10th of the
stuff that one written with "bloatware" is going to be capable of. I mean,
look at what it has for a browser: <http://www.menuetos.net/098b3.png>

------
rogerbinns
You should always be wary if any binary blobs are required (often the case
with video drivers). They will limit what you can do in terms of upgrading the
kernel and hence the rest of the OS.

Sadly VIA have a history of not quite getting this whole "open" thing:
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=via_o...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=via_open_turn&num=1)

~~~
thereason
My vision for these boards is not to display graphics, but to send/receive
data from the internet and a local network. I'm not going to use a Pi to watch
movies or some other resource-intensive task. I'd just as soon use the power
of GPU that comes with Pi for some other task besides video.

What would be interesting is if one of these boards would be designed such
that, by pure coincidence, it could fit into an Apple form factor
(cheap/old/maybe used). I've read that in, e.g., Vietnam, people with
soldering irons do all sorts of hackish things to iPhones.

Or maybe a market for curved edge form factor casings develops. Maybe it
already exists. But I never saw any Apple-like form factors in the mini-ITX
offerings. Whenever you see something with a cool form factor, it seems it's
always a proprietary package, hermetically sealed, not easy to tinker with.

~~~
rogerbinns
The Raspberry Pi starts up by loading an opaque blob into the GPU, and that
then runs the CPU under supervision. ie the CPU is a servant and controlled by
the GPU, not the other way around as is normal in the PC world.

So irrespective of your video intentions, you are still at the mercy of a
blob.

~~~
excuse-me
But unless your are a real FOSS zealot (say > 500milli Stallmans) you are at
the mercy of the bios, the disk controller firmware and the CPU microcode on
any machine

In reality being able to run whatever user programs you want in whatever
combination you want without artificial is what FOSS is all about.

~~~
rogerbinns
The "user programs" you want to run are determined by the operating system.
And the operating system is determined by blobs, controllers, BIOS and similar
gunk.

If for example the Pi blob is such that Linux kernel 3.7 can't run then you
are SOL. Or if on a device like this their blob only works with Android 2.3
then you can't run a different version. Or maybe you can't run one of the
BSDs.

The video/GPU is especially relevant in the Pi case because it controls what
the CPU can do.

~~~
excuse-me
Yes that's true - I was thinking of people who complain they don't have
details for some deep detail of the GPU shader cores to write an opensource
driver for their NVidia card.

------
eupharis
What's more exciting than this computer itself is the potential it represents.
If you read the actual product page [apc.io], a lot of it is devoted to just
how small this new Neo-ITX form factor is.

For comparison's sake:

    
    
      Mass-market paperback - 19.8cm x 13cm
      Neo-ITX - 17cm x 8.5cm
      IPhone 4 -  11.5 cm x 5.86 cm 
      2.5inch SSD - 10 cm x 6.99 cm
      Raspberry Pi - 8.6cm x 5.4cm
    

So the Neo-ITX is a third bigger than an IPhone 4.[1] And the perfect size to
nestle a normal SSD right on top.

Not very far down the road, we will be looking at a complete, very functional
computer (harddrive, wireless internet, etc.) in a package about the size of a
small book. All for 15 watts.

And what I love best: it will be so cheap and versatile. Because it will use
modular, already popular hardware.

Remember the good old days of the desktop:

Swap out the HDD for a bigger one. Replace it easily if it fails. Swap out the
whole motherboard if that fails. Keep using the same damn case and power
adaptor for ten years.

And best: put in random, new PCI express cards that expand the capabilities of
the computer, using it in ways the original designers hadn't foreseen. As
happened in the past with:

    
    
      Ethernet
      Wireless Networking
      Exploding GPU power
    
    
    

[1] I initially used a deck of cards for comparison. But I couldn't visualize
exactly how big a deck of cards is. But an iPhone...

------
polshaw
So many comments and no-one could manage any praise?

It matches the real-life cost of the Rpi, probably will have general
availability around the same time, and has double the memory and a little
onboard NAND.

It may not be perfect, but remember this sector is very much in its infancy,
and a little more competition has to be a good thing for improvements in
future devices all round.

------
trotsky
_4 watts when idle_

no power management? my standard voltage laptop with a spinning disk, screen
and low backlighting idles at 6-7.

And can you really get away with no HS/F at 13 watts under load?

~~~
jcheng
FWIW, SheevaPlug idles at 4 watts as well.

------
octotoad
Finally, a cheap ATX-compatible ARM board. Give me PCIe and DIMM slots and
I'll be salivating. Equip it with something like a dual-core Cortex chip and
I'll be throwing wads of cash in all directions.

~~~
bradfa
Why not just buy any number of Atom or Fusion motherboards out there? Cost is
in the same realm as what you're asking for and they already have those slots.
Power consumption isn't much more than the ARMs, but there's actual product
you can buy today.

If you don't mind waiting a bit, see Freescale iMX6:
[http://boundarydevices.com/products-2/nitrogen6x-board-
imx6-...](http://boundarydevices.com/products-2/nitrogen6x-board-imx6-arm-
cortex-a9-sbc/)

------
duncan_bayne
VIA: if you're reading this, your address help@apc.io is busted :-(

The original email I sent was:

Hi, I'm really excited to see the $49 Android PC; it looks like a perfect
platform for a number of projects I've been thinking of.

However I'm worried - most manufacturers offering low-price Android devices
fail to comply with the terms of the GPL.

Will you be releasing the source code to any GPL'd components used by your
system? And will you allow customers to install their own OSs on the device or
will it be restricted to your own build of Android?

Thanks for your time; I look forwards to your reply.

~~~
duncan_bayne
And sales@apc.io is bouncing too. Classy.

------
cryptoz
> Android 2.3 OS

 _sigh_. ICS has been out for 6 months now. It's tragic that companies are
shipping an ancient 2-year-old OS with their computers.

~~~
ajross
It's more complicated than that, though. You can't just download ICS and drop
it on the board. There are drivers to port and middleware integration to do.
Someone has to do that. Google did it for OMAP4 (the Galaxy Nexus), but that's
it. This isn't an OMAP4 board, and $50 a unit doesn't pay for a lot of
software integration work.

This is where the ARM ecosystem tends to fall down. The PC World is built on
compatibility. No one can ship a board if it doesn't run Windows (or even DOS,
frankly). Graphics cards have VESA and VGA fallback modes so that you can
bootstrap a driver installation. And as a result the Linux community can
leverage this to provide pretty great support for new hardware, even if it
starts out as a fallback or partial implementation for a few versions. None of
that exists in the SoC world.

So if VIA or NVIDIA or Samsung or Qualcomm want ICS to run on their chips,
they need to do the work. So far they have not. Nor have their customers been
willing or able to.

~~~
nextparadigms
Canonical and others in the Linux community are working on making a universal
kernel for ARM SoC's, and they hope it will work on most of them by 2014. That
might help with upgrades and compatibility in the Android world, too,
especially since they are planning to merge the Android kernel back into the
main Linux kernel.

[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA0N...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA0NzA)

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linux-guru-re-
merging-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linux-guru-re-merging-of-
android-into-kernel-eases-sysdev-a-bit/10635)

------
angusgr
Alongside the obvious comparisons to Raspberry Pi, it's worth looking at
Allwinner A10 based devices like the Mele A1000: [http://rhombus-
tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000...](http://rhombus-
tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/)

Same price bracket, faster Cortex A8 based processor, and (most importantly)
marketed as "hackable" with available source & tech docs, and a community
working on porting other OSes to it.

Even if you don't want to hack on it yourself, this means you're more likely
to find interesting uses and software updates for it down the line.

IMHO these are the aspects VIA should be aiming to compete on as well, so it's
not stuck with a crummy vendorware version of Android.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Bad link try this: <http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/>

Other than that, its an interesting box too although it looks like it is
harder to get one's hands on it.

~~~
angusgr
Thanks, fixed typo in the other link.

The Melee boards are available to ship now from Aliexpress vendors, so you'd
have it in your hands sooner than the apc.io (July predicted ship date) or the
Pi (still filling backorders.)

------
AUmrysh
I hope they also have linux distributions for it other than android. If it
works with arduino, these could lead to very inexpensive analog/digital
controllers.

~~~
sp332
As long as the distro has drivers for VIA WonderMedia WM8750, it will be fine.
Honestly I have no idea if any distros do.

------
Kilimanjaro
Add wi-fi, remove vga and ethernet, drop the usb towers and make it flatter,
make an aluminum case and sell it for $99.

You'll sell a million just the first couple of months.

~~~
ars
Do not remove VGA. There are a TON of old VGA monitors (LCD as well) just
sitting around, and this is a perfect machine to use with them.

Force people to use HDMI and most of them will have to buy a new monitor.

------
guard-of-terra
For some unknown reason all those sensor terminals, atms and other smart
devices are powered by windows.

Windows is an awful choice since it requires a huge pricey box with fans,
since it shows its dialog messages over the interface, catches viruses and yet
they stick to it. It makes me sad thinking about how much money do they waste
on it and how MS is able by get their cut while making everyone lives and
products worse by using their BS power.

~~~
zrail
Windows has been available on embedded systems from almost the very beginning.
Windows CE was not originally for tablets, it was for ATMs and the like.

~~~
guard-of-terra
But still they use stock Windows. They don't use CE or XP Embedded. They use
the popping up dialog windows, screensaver kind.

------
thereason
<http://apc.io> is the original source.

It has a nice photo of Allen and Gates.

Now, what I'm wondering is how easy it is to replace Android with your own OS.
I want to know about the bootloader.

------
Derbasti
This somehow lacks all geek-appeal to me. It looks like a regular mother
board. Not interested.

The raspberry pi on the other hand looks _cool_. Strange.

~~~
rbanffy
It depends on what you intend to do with it. My mom's computer is due for an
upgrade and she would probably be happy with a beefier version of this
machine. Swapping the motherboard should be trivial enough and the PC would
continue to look familiar, at least.

She's used to Ubuntu and she couldn't care less about the ISA the machine is
running. Moving to Android could prove an interesting experience, but I
suspect machines like this will have outstanding support for other Linuxes as
well and I'd assume Via has a lot to gain by cooperating.

By now, most likely, someone from Microsoft will have called to offer some
incentive if Via favors Win8 over Android on the platform. We'll see what
happens.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, these machines are nearly ready. They need a little bit more stuff, and
some nice cloud stuff set up.

Put them in a little box, bolt them to the back of a nice monitor and they're
great for most people.

~~~
rbanffy
Oracle will claim a patent infringement because the thing looks too much like
a Sparcstation SLC...

------
b3b0p
Related, my boss just ordered one of these for me to play with:
<http://www.asiapads.com/product_info.php?products_id=2246>

I'm looking forward to it.

Internally, it's called "chrisk's Crapper Computer" (my name is Chris last
name starts with K)

~~~
oliwer
Nice! Looks a lot better than what VIA is doing. At least the CPU is
reasonably powerful.

------
zobzu
The main issue of (amost) ALL these boards is the code. They always use a
large part of proprietary bobs, which makes using them a pain. Even the
Raspberry pi has the issue. In particular, if you've a recent GPU you're often
doomed. Want video accel? Nope. Proper video support? Update to more recent
libraries? Nope again.

------
Aqwis
Why does it have a VGA port instead of a DVI port?

~~~
mark-r
It also has HDMI. They should have dropped the VGA and saved a buck.

~~~
icefox
On the flip side I can pick up a VGA monitor off the curb (i.e. free) while
the cheapest HDMI monitor is still expensive.

~~~
nl
_the cheapest HDMI monitor is still expensive_

Everyone has different levels for what "expensive" means. You can get new HDMI
monitors for well under $150, and new DVI monitors for well under $100, and
DVI<->HDMI adaptors are under $10.

~~~
polshaw
Sure but it is worth baring in mind the context-- that this is a $50 PC.

~~~
nl
Exactly.

~$100 for a monitor (which can also be used with other computers) isn't
expensive when we are talking about a $50 board.

~~~
angusgr
Whether "it's expensive" depends entirely on the market. There are markets
(developing countries, education) where tripling the total cost of the setup,
compared to using a monitor you already have, is significant.

~~~
nl
Yes, I get that. Hence the bit where I said _Everyone has different levels for
what "expensive" means_.

~~~
angusgr
My apologies, between your two comments I was confused about the point you
were making.

------
chj
It doesn't have wlan, not even a dual core cpu, pity. but i am still going to
buy it.

~~~
joshu
including a radio means much more expensive certification testing. so they
often just have you use a USB wifi stick.

~~~
Kliment
That's not true if you use a pre-certified wifi module. Of course such modules
cost half as much as the board, largely because they eliminate the cost of
intentional radiator testing. But I agree, USB wifi is so cheap these days it
makes no sense to have it built-in.

------
pbreit
I wonder how much wifi/wireless would add to the cost?

~~~
noonespecial
How about $1.03.

[http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-
USB2-0-Wireless-802-11-Adapter/...](http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-
USB2-0-Wireless-802-11-Adapter/dp/B004I8B8Z6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1337766131&sr=8-4)

~~~
pbreit
Wow. And Bluetooth is just another $1.19. [http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-
USB-Micro-Adapter-Dongle/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-USB-Micro-
Adapter-Dongle/dp/B001EBE1LI/ref=pd_sim_pc_3)

Those would be two good additions.

------
zyb09
Could you run a server on this? Something like NodeJS with low casual traffic?
Would that work on Android at all?

~~~
EwanToo
Yes you could, I've been experimenting with running a server on arm for a
couple of months and its surprisingly capable.

Node works well on arm because of all the effort google make for v8 to run
well in Android

------
recoiledsnake
PC? How is this thing even close to a PC?

Looks like a motherboard to me,

~~~
InclinedPlane
It uses solid state storage and the RAM, graphics system, etc. is bundled into
the single System-on-a-chip. Plug in the power then hook it up to
keyboard/mouse/monitor and you are up and running.

~~~
cyber
What he's saying is that it's a bare component. Generally a PC is a usable
system.

One will still need to add a powersupply and case at a minimum. (And _then_
you can plug in your power, keyboard/mouse/monitor, etc.)

~~~
InclinedPlane
OK, fair enough. I don't think the lack of a case is a huge deal (zip tie it
inside a tiny cardboard box, whatever) but the requirement for a special power
supply is significant. In comparison, a raspberry pi can be booted up and used
with parts that a typical geek has lying around (micro-usb charger, usb
periphs, monitor).

Edit: it looks like it comes with a power adapter, so it's effectively a fully
functional computer out of the box (just as much as any system without
kb/monitor).

