MiniPC's SA800 is stacked and ready to roll

Oh modular box of silicon affection, how we love thee. The latest -- the SA800 -- from MiniPC (Japan) is a DIY house of fun packing up to a Core 2 Duo T7600, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory, 2.5-inch 40GB SATA disk, and an Intel 945GT chipset. Want more disk, no problem, stack a 3.5-incher in an extra slab above. Better video with HDMI-out or optical drives? Yup, they've got a stackable component for that and more. Have it your way starting early July in Japan.

[Via Akihabara News]

[strider_mt2k @ Jun 29th 2007 9:16AM]

Interesting.

You could build up from a core system.

[Mr. Sneakery @ Jun 29th 2007 9:23AM]

Having more options is always a good thing (for the consumer) in my opinion.

That has a nice small form factor but gives you the flexibility to expand or customize your rig.
Again the trend starting to appear in laptops as well is also another welcome achievement.

Hopefully the designs start getting sexier and adding more colors or texture finishes to things things to really make them sleek.

[CowboyGA @ Jun 29th 2007 9:25AM]

I love the concept, but this won't be a success. The core will run about US$500, and that won't even come with a DVD drive (or any other optical drive). In order to get that, you'll have to throw down the green for a proprietary drive - that means limited selection and high price. Then, you'll have to do it again for a useful HDD.

You'll end up spending three times as much for style as you would for a gray tower pc.

That's a shame - it really is a neat concept.

[jon @ Jun 29th 2007 9:32AM]

now who would ever pay a premium for style, oh wait, all those macfanboys who buy them for the style and don't use it to its full potential.

[BobTurbo @ Jun 29th 2007 9:36AM]

This mini PC does not have any style...

[Wiserun @ Jun 29th 2007 9:56AM]

If it were me, and they were charging a ridiculous amount for the proprietary unit, I'd just get an external drive (optical or HDD), or transfer images over a LAN (optical).

[Tom @ Jun 29th 2007 9:36AM]

Wow. THIS will bring upgrades to the mainstream. All over the world, there are users who are scared to upgrade their memory, video cards, hard drives, etc. because they don't want to open up their previously opened box, or because they're scared of breaking their computer. With some more hardware design work, a memory upgrade could potentially just plug into the side of the computer - a little silver pod maybe. This could even help the computer break out of it's rectangle form - bulbous shapes being different components, to make for an organically shaped computer. Excellent concept that has a LOT of growing room. With the right price point this could really become champion in the consumer playing field.

[Simon @ Jun 29th 2007 9:59AM]

I can just imagine some idiot accidentally knocking a RAM module off just as they are about to save whatever it is theyve spent the day working on o_0

[CowboyGA @ Jun 29th 2007 10:04AM]

There would have to be industrial standards for connections: 5"x3" rectangular box for ram upgrades; 7"x6" for hard drives; 9"x5" for graphics cards.

It'll be a monster of a job to get enough companies to do that in order to keep prices down - but I would love to see them try.

[Drewbyh @ Jun 29th 2007 10:44AM]

AOpen has had a stackable form like this for a while in the form of the S120. Works for any mini-itx motherboard.