Marshall Brain's Blog

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Smaller and Smaller PCs

The fad in minature PCs started with the mini-ITX boards produced by Via. The boards measure about 6.7 x 6.7 inches (17 x 17 cm) and are complete motherboards. They tend to use CPUs that are running in the 1GHz range to lower the heat built-up, but otherwise they are full PCs. For "normal stuff" like browsing, emailing, etc., they are perfect. Here's an example measuring only 2"x7.7"x7.7":



That set off a mini-PC trend that is producing smaller and smaller full-function PCs. For example, there is this:



It measures only 6"x4"x1.25", but it can run Windows XP and do everything you would expect from a normal PC.

It's also producing a variety of new form factors -- you can now stuff a full-feature PC in lots of smaller places:




And now Via is poised to release the nano ITX form factor so things can shrink again.



Only 4.7 x 4.7 inches.