[geeks] VIA $49 "Neo-ITX"

[Lionel Peterson]

On May 27, 2012, at 8:04 PM, "Joshua D. Boyd" <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:

> On 05/27/2012 02:45 PM, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> You'd pull an Atom board for this Smartphone-based board? Why? There is so
>> much less functionality than the Atom (256 Meg RAM, 2 Gig flash storage,
no
>> SATA, an HDMI only video out, etc.)...
>
> 2 gig of flash storage doesn't sound so bad.  After all, a D525MW comes with
only 1 meg of flash storage.

What? That 1 meg on the Atom MB is to hold the BIOS (I assume), the 2 Gigs on
the VIA board is considered mass storage, removing the need for, say, SATA or
IDE ports/drives, and provides for program and end user data storage.

The VIA board is essentially a smartphone with an HDMI port and runs on wall
power - the Atom board you compared it with is essentially a low power
dual-core P4 system in a small form-factor. Each may excel at certain
applications, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where an
Android-based halfITX MB would be a better fit than an Atom MB FOR MOST USERS.
(The novelty of running Android aside.)