Miniature PCs are top of the tots

WE GOT A BIG RESPONSE to our article on the miniature WiFi computer from Israeli company Compulab, so decided to bring you three more of the latest releases from the world of computers that have been left too long in the tumble drier in order to improve their hobbit usability.

Compulab, themselves, have not sat around after finishing their PXA270 design, and have announced an x86 equivalent, the CM-iGLX, which is a fraction larger than the X270's 6.6 x 4.4cm at a still not exactly whopping 5.8 x 6.8cm. For that you get twice the RAM, a high-res LCD controller and, of course, the ability to run Windows XP.

In comparison, an equivalent nano-ITX motherboard from VIA is 12 x 12cm, which is around four times the size, so it's a pretty impressive achievement again, especially as it squeezes in a touch screen controller and half a gig of Flash, which you won't find on a nano-ITX board. It manages this by a very efficient design in terms of components, and use of a PCB with around 3 times the number of conductive layers of a standard PC motherboard.

The iGLX uses a Geode LX 800, the last of the MediaGX-derived designs from DAAMIT before their replacement with K7 and K8 based designs; not that they will stop making these any time soon, especially with a few million OLPCs to build.

You can pick an iGLX up for $107 in volume, and the manufacturer claims it will work from -40 to +85 degrees C, without the need for a cooling fan the size of Australia. Try doing that with a Prescott, or even a Pentium M.

Swiss company Toradex also have announced availability of their tiny Marvell PXA290 board earlier this week, of which we'd earlier spotted a picture, lurking on Wikipedia.

The new Colibri PXA290 has an 806MHz CPU, 64MB of DDR and 32 meg of flash, and is just 68 x 38mm, which fits into a SO-DIMM socket. You'd probably be ill-advised to try plugging it into your laptop though.

Development kits cost 3499 €uros, but don't plan on buying more than a few until Marvell start shipping the PXA290s in volume in 2007.

Over in Taipei, Netcom have launched their first tiny PXA270 module too, despite the minor irritation of their factory burning down and having to be rebuilt.

The VRM270, with Chinese drivers running on a Taiwanese PCB design, designed to a startup UK company's specification, might not instill a huge amount of confidence, but is a highly creditable 85x65mm, quite a bit larger than the equivalent Compulab board and without Wireless LAN, but with RJ45 and CompactFlash connectors on-board, it allows you to stick a network cable or CF WiFi card directly into it. It also comes with a black PCB, which looks quite cool, and has a battery charger too, to help use in mobile applications. Pricing was not available.

We're suckers for miniaturisation here at The Inq, so, if you've got a new product coming out, then feel free to give us a shout, and we'll gladly cast our magnifying glasses over them. µ

L'INQs
Compulab CM-iGLX WinXP baby computer
Toradex PXA290 baby computer
Netcom PXA270 Baby Computer