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VIA's power-sipping VN1000 chipset brings Blu-ray playback, DX 10.1 support to low-end rigs
VIA may not have the clout that AMD or Intel have, but one thing's for sure: these guys sure love to bring as much heat as possible to the broke-as-a-joke among us. Take the all new VN1000 chipset, for instance, which is designed for Windows 7-based all-in-one PCs and other low-end desktops that yearn for the ability to handle modern day multimedia. The chipset is compatible with VIA's range of Nano, C7, C7-M and Eden processors, and aside from supporting DDR3 memory, up to five PCI slots, up to four SATA II drives, a multicard reader and 12 USB 2.0 ports, it also allows for Blu-ray playback. Users can slap up to 16GB of RAM around it, and the integrated Chrome 520 GPU is apparently potent enough to support DirectX 10.1 and BD films. Who says 1080p is reserved for royalty? %Gallery-80089%
Linutop 3 out to seduce minimalists, cheapskates
We know we expend a lot of digital ink talking about oomph and va va voom, but sometimes you just need a computer you can give to your old grandpappy and let him go wild with the Reader's Digest online edition. The Linutop 3, sporting a custom Linux OS atop a blistering 1GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of RAM and a tremendously capacious 2GB SSD, is just that sort of machine. It asks for a mere €340 ($485) and 20 watts of power, and lets you expand storage by adding an internal hard drive or plugging a memory stick into one of six available USB ports. Sure, you're unlikely to use it for more than the bundled Open Office and Firefox applications, but have you considered this thing's potential after bumping that clock multiplier and dipping the whole thing in liquid nitrogen? Have you? [Via The Register]
Owl's iMpc A10 UMPC just wants some respect
We've seen bulky UMPCs with hidden QWERTY keyboards and svelte ones you could almost slip in a pocket, but regardless of size they've always been comfortable with their lot in life: not being treated as full computers. Not so for Owl's iMpc A10, a plucky portable that wants you to believe it's a real machine, starting with its name, which intentionally implies "I'm a PC." So too is John Hodgman, though, and funny as he is we wouldn't say he's a very good portable computing device. The A10 should be, with a 1.2GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 16GB SSD. It also sports a 5.6-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, a webcam, 802.11b/g wireless, and a claimed 5 hours of battery life -- decent specs but nothing to really differentiate it from the crowd. A price of 2,999 yuan, or about $440, seems reasonable enough, but no availability outside of China means no respect from us.
The e-Loam F7: it will drive you completely insane with jealousy
Been hankering for a cheapo UMPC? Perhaps the folks at e-Loam can answer your strained prayers. Enter the F7, a VIA C7-based handheld with a 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 8GB (or 80GB) hard drive, WiFi, and... not much else. The teensy device boots XP, has Bluetooth, a 0.3 megapixel webcam, and features a resistive 7-inch touchscreen (cool stylus included). There's not much more info on this guy right now, but based on the pictures, it appears to have stereo speakers, and Pocketables speculates there may be an optical mouse somewhere in this mix. Regardless, we spent this whole post trying to figure out how loam -- a fertile soil of clay and sand containing humus -- fits into the picture.[Via Pocketables]
