VIA's OpenBook gets fittingly ripped open

It only makes sense that VIA's contribution to the quickly growing netbook world -- the OpenBook -- get ripped wide open, wouldn't you agree? Better still, this isn't your typical dissection, as the invasive Tim Brown tears apart his own product on video. Three minutes of teardown is just one click away.

[Some Kid @ Jun 19th 2008 11:49AM]

couple questions....
1-how much RAM(what type to?)
2-how much memory(flash/SSD/HDD)
3-core speed
4-graphic memory (dedicated/shared)
5-price
6-OS
7-ports and connectors
8-size
all of which this Tim guy did not talk about:-(

[From my Cube @ Jun 19th 2008 12:04PM]

because all that info is on the side of the box you buy?

[knows how to google better than some kid @ Jun 19th 2008 1:02PM]

did you think to look at the open book web page?
http://www.viaopenbook.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2

[cxp3 @ Jun 19th 2008 12:25PM]

All that stuff is decided by the OEMs that configure and distribute these. The Open Book is basically a barebones standard.

[Dave @ Jun 19th 2008 1:26PM]

Was better than most videos I've seen detailing products (so congrats there), but I agree, would like to see more on other areas like increased hard drives and maybe even screens.

[Nimblesquirrel @ Jun 19th 2008 5:55PM]

specs are unremarkable compared to other netbooks:

RAM: DDR2 (most likely 400MHz) and up to 2GB (so it can be assumed only 1 SODIMM slot, like most other netbooks).

Storage: VIA used an 80GB HDD, but as this is only a reference design that is up to the OEM to decide between HDDs and SSDs.

Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7-M in the reference, but the VIA Nano is meant to be a drop in replacement for the C7, so that can change. No Intel Atom or AMD Bobcat (obviously).

Graphics: VIA VX800 with Chrome 9 HC3 intergrated graphics, and up to 256MB shared memory. None of the netbooks have dedicated graphics.

Price: depends on the OEM, remember this is a reference design, not a shipping product.

OS: depends again on the OEM

Ports: Like most other netbooks it has USB2.0, card reader, audio and VGA. Why can't they at least swap the VGA for DVI??

Size: About the same as the Eee 900/901.

[ethana2 @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:31AM]

I wish them luck. We need more transparency in the market.

Of course, arguably the main bottleneck now is specs for nvidia gpu's, but every thing helps...