Quote: Originally Posted by
2k1Toaster 
That is ridiculous. Scratch the HU, get a decent amp. $100. Screen for $200. $80 for the PSU with SDC. $40 for wiring (40' 4awg). maybe $50 or $60 if you didn't have spare molex cables, and extra small guauge wires and vga/usb cords, We'll say $60 just to be argumentitive. $100 GPS and software (S&T), and $45 for XP (with student discount). Bluetooth is correct. So what we have is $505 plus mobo/ram/hd. Mine was $150 for mobo and hd, and I had tons of ram lying around, so it was free, but 1Gb is like $65 now i think. So $215.
Total cost is $720 probably +- $200 depending on deals or stupid buys/accidents.
$2200 is not that bad including their profits and all. still better to do it yourself though.
like i said, Prices can be shaved off all around. I purposely rounded up to bring it up to high end carpc. IE what a unit like this entails. I'm trying to compare apples to apples. Hell for the price I listed it's probably better because of the inclusion of the Alpine processor.
I mean I could argue that I can buy used laptop for $250, take a 20 dollar inverter, hack the screen off. and mount it or buy another non-touchscreen for $100, mount that where I want, spend under $50 buying a used\cheap gps adapter, and get a usb touchpad for $150 and there you go a carpc for about $340-$440.
Or Buy a used several model year old mobo/cpu miniATX for $50, a hd for $30. Built a case out of $10 dollars worth of wood. Buy a $100 vga screen, $30 for crappy gps adapter, $15 for usb touchpad, $80 for psu shutdown controller. and there you have a functional carpc for $310. $400 if you wanted a touchscreen instead of touchpad. The point of what I posted was it wont be of the same caliber quality without spending good money.
You're not getting a core duo setup for $150 for mobo/cpu/hd.
This adds a dvd slot combo drive, thats what $90? Sure you can get a regular drive for 30 but that would be huge and this is a self contained unit.
I agree on the GPS solution of just buying S&T with the puck, course I could argue and just say buy a BU353 and forget bout S&T for less money.
You're not going to be able to power a core duo with a $80 dollar PSU/SDC, not if you want any usable power going to other devices. You're onboard video isnt going to be powerfull, the one in this unit supports Aero. Not that you'd use it/need it but who knows what carpc's hold in the future.
Screen for $200? Sure, but what about the cost of fabbing it in? Epoxy, Body filler, Paint isnt free. This hurt me when I realized how much I spent on just fabbing the screen into place, and i'm still not done! Course I might buy a new screen because the sub $200 dollar screen just isnt bright enough for me.
When I listed wires In my mind I included every type of wire you'd need except power wires for the amp. Thats good quality RCA's($20x2), Long USB($7), Speaker/sub($12x2 @ walmart), VGA($15) and so on. $100 is pretty low considering decent RCA's are $11-20 bucks shipped for just 2 channels.
XP can be gotten for $10 bucks in certain places with student discounts. Not everyone is a student so I included OEM Price.
What about a case? Sure you can mount it all with bungie cords and hot glue but this unit comes with it's own compact case, only fair to include the price of one $100
Just buying a cheap $100 dollar amp does nothing because you still have to get your signal TO the amp and thats what I was emphasizing. It's one of the biggest gripes about carpc's I see. Show me a cheap solution that gives high quality aftermarket like sound to an amp for under $100 that doesnt have induced audio noise, jitter problems, raises the noise floor. Every onboard solution ive tried in a car has audible noise, and to me that wont do. Hell my X-Fi Fatality on my homePC has audible noise if it's around any funky equipment.
I bought my bluetooth adapter for $6 bucks
And it works.
That being said at the end of the day a cheap carpc using a cheap usb sound or cheap pci sound card will not sound as good as something like a Pioneer Z1 or this. My shuttle doesnt sound good connected to my amps, or the higher end JL audio setup my friend has in his car using just 1/8" to RCA cable. The noise floor is incredibly high. My laptop has the same issue when connected to either setup. There's an audible hiss and the volume is low. My friend tried a carpc, went with a opus 250w for power, a mp3car store like carpc. Then ditched it after pouring alot of money trying to get the sound how he wanted it. Now he runs a Pioneer Z1 and can't be happier. We tried various usb/pci solutions for him, Even went into the audiophile range of sound cards and none compare to the aftermarket unit. His car PC is now his HTPC.
Every day I see the cost of my carpc go up. It started relatively low because I already had a throwaway laptop I wanted to use.
My initial Plan was
Laptop Free but paid $350 on black friday a year before
Screen $200
Fab Materials, $100
Inverter $30 butWork paid for it
VGA Extension, Free - Liberated from work but $8 new
Bluetooth Adapter, USB Hub, $18 shipped
GPS = MS Streets n Trips 2006 for $94, but work paid for it!
Now the Inverter I hard mounted in the car for general usage, But for now it' powering my carpc + screen, this wont always be the case.
So all in all I only spent $318 out of my pocket THIS YEAR and $668 overall over the course of two years. Right there I had a almost comparable setup to this Azentek Atlas in terms of specs. Except my GPS wasn't as good, and my sound was crap.
That doesnt include the cost of my sound system or power cables. I spend over $250 on just power cables (dual runs of 1/0 ga to the back, 4ga for my amps, 8ga for other devices, distribution blocks, fused blocks, 1/0ga big three upgrade under the hood), and a better battery.
Upon testing I realized sound was terrible. compared to the stock head unit, or even a 40 dollar cd player from walmart. I Really had to hardmount everything and provide power properly to everything. And fix the sound.
So I bought a Silverstone EB01 to try and alleviate my sound burden because music is important to me. There went $94, Still not happy, it's better now but I can get better sound out of a head unit. So this will go away and I'll have to push towards the alpine unit, there goes $500-700
Currently looking at powering the laptop, the screen, a 9v device, and the usb hub. Looks like i'll be spending $160 to do all that, but I'll gain some nice features like volt gauges(Something the Z1 does) if i go the route im thinking.
Oh id like to control some devices and lights from the car pc, there goes $50 for the light control, another $50-100 for a relay bored.
Camera for reverse looks nice, there goes another $100 + a bit more for a usb/tv-in/capture card.
Radio? there goes $20-100+ depending on what i get.
ok enough of this 3am rant. I'm alittle tispy and need to lay down for awhile
Linear Mode
