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December 24, 2005
New AOPEN MiniPC
It's finally arrived - the first Mac Mini clone. Our review system was supplied by Evesham, but the barebone chassis is manufactured by AOpen and has been known as the 'Pandora'. Sadly this catchy name is gone - AOpen has re-named it the Mini PC, which is just plain boring. Anyhow, name aside, this is a really cool-looking little machine - it arguably looks even better than the Mac Mini, mainly due to its aluminium case.
The Mini PC's solid cast-aluminium casing oozes quality and it's hard not to fall in love with it at first sight. The slot-load DVD writer adds to the quality feel. The power button has a blue back light and a further two blue LEDs light up when the hard drive is being accessed. Even the Evesham logo looks stylish as it's a proper raised logo, not just a cheap sticker.
Aopen Evesham Mini PC
Click Here
But enough about looks, let's get down to the technical bits. The Mini PC retains the Mac Mini's minimalist approach, so the selection of ports is limited. From left to right, across the backplane, is the power connector for the external PSU, a DVI connector - a DVI to D-SUB dongle is in the box - and an S-Video output to which a Component video dongle can be connected. Next up is an Ethernet port for the onboard Gigabit Ethernet controller, two USB 2.0 ports, a six-pin FireWire connector, and finally headphone and microphone jacks. What's missing in an option for multi-channel audio output, such as S/PDIF which could easily have been built in to one of the 3.5mm audio jacks. The downside to this is that you won't get multi-channel sound if you would like to use the Mini PC as a home theatre PC.
And that's about it. As this is a miniature PC you can't expect to get much more inside. A couple of more USB ports wouldn't have gone amiss, though.
Internally, there isn't much to fiddle around with either, as there's not a lot of space for anything apart from the bits that are already in place. Evesham has yet to take advantage of the mini-PCI slot, but it can be populated with a Wi-Fi card which is available as an upgrade option. Processor-wise the model on review came fitted with a 2GHz Pentium M 760, which is powerful enough for every day tasks, but it does have some limitations. The CPU cooler can get quite noisy when the machine gets hot, which was something I didn't expect and this is an issue I hope that AOpen will look into. Considering that there is no PSU fan noise due to the Mini PC using an external PSU, having a noisy CPU cooler is more disappointing than in a desktop machine.
Posted by keefner at 03:37 AM
AOpen Uses Seagate 2.5-inch Hard Drives in its New Mini PCs
Seagate Technology announced that AOpen Inc. has selected Seagate 2.5-inch hard drives for its new mini PCs. Seagate's 2.5-inch disk drives enabled AOpen to meet the size and performance requirements for what it is referring to as the "world's smallest PC" that measures 16.5 x16.5 x 5.1 cm and weighs 1.15 kg.
The Aopen MP915-P PC is available with the Seagate 80 GB Momentus 4200.2 drive, while the MP915-C model is built with the 40 GB LD25 hard drive. Both PCs are available worldwide.
"AOpen's new mini PCs give consumers more power, but in a smaller footprint and at a great value," said Bernie Tsai, president of AOpen. "Seagate 2.5-inch hard drives will enable us to meet strong demand for PCs that are small, easy-to-use and portable."
"Seagate Momentus and LD25 hard drives combine the performance, size, ruggedness and quiet operation AOpen needed for its new MP915-P and MP915-C systems," said Ban Seng Teh, Seagate vice president and managing director, Asia Sales and Marketing. "Seagate will continue to push the limits of 2.5-inch drives with the shipment of the industry's first notebook drive built on perpendicular recording technology to deliver a massive 160 GB of capacity and the rollout of the first 2.5-inch drive with hardware-based full disc encryption to protect data on lost or stolen notebook PCs."
The Momentus family delivers a range of spin speeds (4,200-, 5,400- and 7,200-rpm), capacities (40 GB to 160 GB), and interfaces (Serial ATA and Ultra ATA), allowing system builders to offer a variety of systems ranging from low-cost and mainstream notebook PCs to high-performance mobile workstations, small form factor PCs and blade servers. The Momentus drives feature Seagate's SoftSonic fluid dynamic motor and QuietStep ramp load technology for a quite performance.
The LD25 Series is a consumer electronics hard drive in a compact, 2.5-inch form factor that enables smaller, simpler, cooler-running and more cost-effective game consoles, home entertainment devices and small footprint media PCs. Seagate's DynaPlay technology optimizes the drive for media streaming, power consumption and content security.
Posted by keefner at 03:35 AM
The Ultimate Thin Client
Imagine a mobile thin client so thin that it doesn't even have a client.
You'd be imagining MobiKey from Route1: a thumb-sized device that plugs into a USB port on any client computer, "takes it over," and accesses your data and applications on corporate servers and your desktop PC.
Instead of carrying around a laptop or other device, loaded with corporate data, you can securely use any available Windows PC that has an Internet connection to safely access applications on the other side of the corporate firewall.
You plug MobiKey into a spare USB port. The device starts up from onboard read-only memory, and loads the log-in screen. MobiKey authenticates you against Route1's managed Internet service, called MobiNet, using embedded digital certificates. MobiNet also sets up an encrypted SSL tunnel through the corporate firewall.
Once authenticated to MobiNet, you get a list of the computers and servers you can access. Click on "connect" and you can see the prompt to enter your Windows password for your office or home computer, for example. Complete the log-in, and your local keyboard is in effect attached to that remote PC. You can connect to up to five remote systems at once.
MobiKey runs in a protected memory space on the local PC. So, once you're logged in, you are sealed off from the local Windows operating system, and any viruses or other malware that may be lurking on it. If the key is stolen or lost, the MobiNet service can disable it the next time it's used.
Earlier this year, Route1 introduced the MobiBook Pro, a Windows CE-based mobile thin client (review).
MobiKey is available now, at an introductory price of US$399. The per-user monthly subscription fee to the MobiNet service is US$20.
Posted by keefner at 03:32 AM