Via mobo is smaller than a business card

VIA HAS TWO interrelated items here that put the 'wow' back in computing. One is a mobo, the other is a laptop based on it, and both are really small.

The first one is the new Via Mobile ITX form factor motherboard. It is actually smaller than a business card, and runs a 1GHz C7M CPU. It will comfortably run XP all day long with the CPU pulling 3.5W worst case, but about .25W idling. The northbridge adds about another 3.5.

You may notice that the entire mobo is dwarfed by a dollar bill, it is actually marginally smaller than my business card. Interestingly, the big chip in the center is not the CPU, that is the northbridge, the CPU is the little one immediately to it's left.

The board has 4 RAM chips soldered on, you can see two above the NB and the CPU, two others are on the back. This one has 256MB but 512MB versions are available with higher density DRAMs. Is it time for Origami?

Well no, that is still a dead concept, but there is one very nice thing that comes out of the whole mini-mobo thing, the Via NanoBook. Call me crazy, but when the Via guys say that they think this is the one, I for once totally agree.

It is a laptop concept based on the Mobile ITX mobo, it has a 7" touchscreen (hence the blurry pics, it looks fine in person) and runs full XP. NanoBooks will play DVDs and do everything a normal PC does. On top of that, you can see an LCD clock thing to the right of the screen.

This is where some of the magic lies. It has a removable module on the screen, this one is more or less a placeholder. You can put in modules for communications, cellular or WiMax, bluetooth, or whatever else you want. It is just a click in USB module so it should be a snap to design for.

Modules will most likely be built by the vendors that make the NanoBook, note the plural. The Notebook will cost $699 or so MSRP, so it is not the usual twice the cost of a real notebook price range. That said, cost and screen capabilities will vary with the specific model, it is a very flexible design which I fully expect vendors to exploit.

I really hope the NanoBook concept takes off, I think Via has the best product on its hands since the original ITX machines. Well done. µ