VIA Unveils $79 Rock and $99 Paper ARM PCs 158
Don't yet have one of those million Raspberry Pis, but you're in the market for a tiny, cheap ARM computer? An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from geek.com: "VIA has decided it's time to update the APC (ARM PC) board with new components and the choice of two configurations. The new systems are called APC Rock and APC Paper. The hardware spec for both boards is exactly the same except for the fact the Rock ships with a VGA port whereas the Paper doesn't. The Rock also costs $20 less at $79, whereas the Paper is $99. The reason for the price difference is the fact that the Paper ships with a rather novel case whereas the Rock is a bare board. The Paper's case is made from recycled cardboard attached to an aluminum chassis to help with strength, meaning it will keep the dust off the components and make it easier to carry while keeping weight to a minimum."
Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)
RasPi has very close specs, this one adds just a tiny 4GB flash card, which is obviously not worth the $44 price difference.
You'd want this one [hardkernel.com] instead: more than 10x the performance, 2GB memory, $89 w/o disk.
Re:Have they fixed the memory controller yet? (Score:4, Informative)
He's referring to a point made recently to some kernel-internal DMA interfaces that are marked as GPL only and Nvidia wanted them to be something else so they could use them with their proprietary module.
Alan Cox resisted, and as a result a small performance boost can't be had by proprietary graphics drivers.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA0ODE [phoronix.com]
Re:What about (Score:2, Informative)
You'd want this one [hardkernel.com] instead: more than 10x the performance, 2GB memory, $89 w/o disk.
There are many boards coming out beating this one in both price and performance. The wandboard [wandboard.org] is another one. Cubieboard probably too.