New VIA ARTiGO targets consumers

The latest VIA ARTiGO system, just launched by VIA, is targetting regular consumers and enthusiasts. Previous VIA ARTiGO designs were aimed for use as servers. The ARTiGO A1100 would also be perfect for that but the new configuration also aims to appeal to general desktop use as well.
The new white chassis is pretty spiffy looking, complete with a little swirly design. It looks just as cute as the first ARTiGO but the white color is somehow more friendly than the black. The measurements are 14.5 x 10 x 5 cm and that makes it the smallest full featured PC kit available. It is full featured, with a 1.2GHz VIA Nano 64-bit processor and the VX855 digital media chipset which gives it HD playback support. Being so small, it doesn't have room for an optical drive but you could always plug in a USB optical drive.

As a media box for the lounge room, that compliments a DVD/Blu-ray player, and is responsible for playing DivX, AVI and other media file types, the ARTiGO A110 is really pretty awesome. The etail price, for US residents only, is USD 243. It has HDMI and VGA out (and audio of course). That's not a bad deal, especially when you look at how much space it would take up ... or more to the point, how much space it wouldn't take up. Having the audio ports on the front and the VGA and HDMI on the back is not ideal though as there would be no way to avoid having cables sticking out the front of it.

As a desktop PC it's also a very sweat deal. It would take up less room on a desk than you're average phone!! The specs are also more than capable of most people's working requirements.

The Press Release says that it supports Windows 7, Vista and XP but the product page on VIA's site omits Vista. Not sure what the deal is there but my guess is that it's on oversight on the website.

Sadly, no online sales place is listed for Australia. Mini-ITX.com do ship internationally though. You can also try and win one in VIA's ARTiGO A110 simile game. The competition is open until next Thursday 29th. The idea behind the comp is that people submit images of things that the ARTiGO A110's size reminds them of and then people vote for their favorite. My tip would be to go for something funny.

New Pico-ITX board with a Nano

Finally, VIA has released a Pico-ITX board featuring the VIA Nano processor. The 64-bit superscalar processor will give a performance boost to the platform. The new EPIA-P820 board can also be paired with a new VIA AMOS chassis, the 3001 model. The AMOS-3001 is the fifth in the series, all designed as IPC chassis that have thermal cooling properties, can withstand great temperature variances, and are shock resistant. The AMOS-3001 also offers various mounting options for industrial use and I/O ports on both sides.

But I digress, let's get back to the new Pico-ITX board. The Press Release states that
“Never before have developers had the opportunity to harness full 64-bit, superscalar processing in spaces as small as the palm of your hand ... " and although no company's Press Release statements should ever be taken at face value - they do have a point. It's pretty impressive that embedded hardware solutions have come this far.

The EPIA-P820 supports 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1.2GHz U2500 Nano processor and the VX855 digital media processor which supports HD playback. This makes it ideal for billboards or information kiosks that need super graphics capabilities. But it's also suited to industrial applications that just need a bit more horsepower.

VIA launches new HD capable Pico-ITX

Imagine a digital interactive device that's about the size of a paperback and can play HD video at 1080p with no fans in the system! By combining the VX855 Media System Processor with a VIA Eden processor, the EPIA-P720 makes it possible.

"Today’s digital interactive devices give users a more immersive and enhanced experience, employing high quality, high resolution video content. Using the latest video compression technologies, like the increasingly popular H.264 codec, HD media playback usually requires a substantial processing overhead, negating the possibility of a completely fanless compact system.

With the VIA EPIA-P720, the VIA VX855 MSP takes the video decompression burden from the central processor, applying industry-leading hardware acceleration for the most compression-intensive codecs, including H.264, VC1, WMV9 and MPEG 2/4, at display resolutions up to 1080p. The VIA EPIA-P720 also boasts several display connectivity options including native HDMI, VGA and LVDS support."

Read more in the official Press Release.

Wyse release two 7 watt thin clients

The new Fujitsu thin clients have been in the news recently because of their low power consumption. Wyse might now come up trumps with two new models featuring VIA's Eden processors and the most recent VX855 single chip solution. The VX855 draws just 3.5 watts under load, whilst still providing the option for dual monitor support. Overall, the C3OLE and C9OLE thin clients only require seven watts of power under load. That's crazy! Imagine that a light bulb consumes 60 watts and all it's doing is, well being bright! The two models run either Windows Embedded CE 6.0 or Windows XP Embedded.

The units don't look like a thin client does traditionally. In stead of the classic "I'm a book PC" chasis, they look more like a router, with sturdy little legs. More on WindowsForDevice.com.