Atom-based Inhand FireFly SBC promises netbook-level performance at a "fraction" of the power
By Donald Melanson 
posted Aug 12th 2009 2:46PM
posted Aug 12th 2009 2:46PM
SBCs (or single board computers) may not always be the most exciting components around, but it looks like InHand Electronics has managed to break out from the pack a bit with its new FireFly board, which the company claims is the world's "smallest and most power efficient full-function Atom-based SBC." That translates to a total power consumption of about 4.5 Watts in actual numbers (or 500mW in sleep state) and, just as notably, it apparently boasts some performance that's "comparable" to your average Atom-based Dell Mini netbook. What's more, unlike some other similar boards, the FireFly packs both on-board DDR2 and expansion capabilities, which not only broadens the potential product base for it, but could also mean that the eventual products will be smaller than your average handheld / UMPC / MID as well.
Too cool...
nah... this doesn't even come close to the Fox show
...if it ever exists. My money is on never seeing this ever.
It's available now with Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and dual battery chargers.
Um, yeah, if you get rid of the screen, drives, etc., it takes less power than a netbook.
With the screen (an 8.4" backlight TFT display) and a SSD it runs around 6.5W, which is still lower than most Intel Atom based netbooks.
Tegra will skin it alive.
Shame it's ARM however. Don't get me wrong with Android it probably kicks ass but some people want Windows because the familiarity with it.
Chrome OS might change that.
Do brand names really physically attack other brand names ? Marketing sure is a dangerous sport.
True because I don't want "netbook-level performance", I want to play HD movies, including full-screen youtube HD vids and 1080p HD vids so I hope next-gen Tegra will handle that and much more.
Intel? The calculator maker? Yah, it makes nice CPUs which fail to calculate why people want moving pictures, not only numbers and web pages.
Did I mention netbooks fail to play flash-based videos if you have several internet pages with flash opened? Acer Aspire One certainly does - plays 3fps till I close other pages with flash ADs (can't turn off those pesky ADs otherwise).
@Shinigami: If you're using FF get the Adblockplus plugin AND the flashblock plugin.
1/1 is a fraction right?
no its a scale.
+1. This is exactly where my mind went when I saw "fraction" in quotes.
which atom? sounds like 330?
"Z510 processor, 1.1GHz and Z530 processor, 1.6GHz" (sic Inhand site)
my windows xp cellphone!
XP seems terribly outdated now... :P
There's a larger selection of similar Atom based SBC's available for perusal at the Small Form Factor Boards Conference site. http://bit.ly/Feo1I
Pardon, but what is SBC?
do not bring politics into this please... Go find someone who cares..
Wrong thread (blog).
Single board computer
When asked what they're secret was, InHand muttered something about an ARM Cortex microprocessor on the back of the board that does all the actual work.
Friggin' English.
This is no place for racial hate, what did the English ever do to you ?
@Major4Play
He's referring to this mishmash we call a language.
This seems like a good way to go for a home web server. Small, easy to get out of the way, low power consumption, low performance. Is it going to be cheap, though. That's the kicker.
I was more thinking about home automation computer...
(un)locking doors, controlling thermostat, lights, blinds, watering lawn.
I don't know power consumption on the competitors, but there's already Pico-ITX Atom-based motherboards. So this isn't the smallest (95mm x 114mm vs 72mm x 100mm). Marketing fail.
I promised myself I'd pull myself away from the digihubverse whilst I was on vacation..but my wife is asleep, I'm wide awake and our hotel has access included in the price, as well as I having brought along a couple of i-capable gadgets..sigh It makes it hard to stay totally disconnected. :/
Anywho, it will be interesting to see what the price-point of this item is. It's not going to be the cheapest or the smallest, but the power consumption versus capability ratio is nothing to scoff at. The nearest comparable product i remember off-hand (It's been a couple of years since I've discretely researched for a similar form-factor device. An Atom/Tegra combo might blast this out of the water, I don't really know...yet) was the FitPC - a AMD Geode powered device, which ran at around half the speed of this device and was about the same dimensionally along the two longest edges and a smidge thicker.(About 20mm for the Firefly and 30mm for the FitPC slim, so about 2/3 the thickness and roughly double the horsepower - not bad for a little over a year. Some progress. ;) )
Here is a spec comparison between the two:
http://www.inhand.com/images/pdf/firefly-web.pdf
http://www.fit-pc.com/fit-pc1/fit-pc-slim-specifications.html
And here is a unboxing of the FitPC Slim model to get an idea of the dimensions of these devices. :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0XpoFlGDI0