Thread: Scion xB '06, in-dash Atom 330, Lilliput 889GL; details, pictures, links. Index: pg 1

Leave it, Disassemble it or Replace it?

I'm been trying to decide whether I'll leave the EeePC as a netbook and continue to just park it in the dash, or if I'll tear it apart and mount the screen behind the bezel permanently, with the EeePC's guts behind the screen. The amount of chassis and bezel fabrication is roughly the same, so that's not consequential in the decision.

The real problem is that it seriously grinds me to tear the perfectly functioning netbook apart when I could buy pretty much similar components and use them. I'd still have the netbook, or I could sell it to pay for the components.

Choice 1: Leave the EeePC on the Dash
This is the easiest -- just get the DC-DC power supply installed in the double-DIN chassis and build the bezel to fit it. Downside: the EeePC isn't very secure just sitting in the dash. Here's how it looks:

Click image to enlarge.

Choice 2: Tear the EeePC Apart
I could use the lower part as a small standalone keyboard + touchpad, although it would have to be a wired unit. I'd take out all the other parts -- mainboard, USB, wireless, Bluetooth and battery, and build them into a chassis that fits in the area behind the screen. Then I'd add the touch panel on the front of the screen, attach that to the double-DIN chassis, and build the bezel to match it. Total cost: $95 delivered for the touchscreen addition.

Choice 3: Replace the EeePC
I can buy an Intel D945GCLF2 Mini-ITXmotherboard, a Shark 8-inch touchscreen LCD panel, and 2GB of memory, for $286 delivered. I have all the other parts for a complete carPC.

The resulting numbers say that, for a net difference of $191, I'd have two PCs: the carPC and the EeePC.

Benefits to tearing the EeePC apart:

• The parts are already here, except for the touchscreen.
• It has higher screen resolution (1024x600 vs 800x600).
• It has a slightly larger screen (8.9-inch versus 8-inch)

Benefits to building from components:

• There's no need to destroy the EeePC.
• The touchscreen is already installed in the Shark.
• The Intel board has a faster processor (dual-core Atom 330 vs single-core Atom 270)

Choice 4: Bugbyte's Curve Ball
Today, in the wee hours of the morning, Bugbyte -- one of the MP3Car visionaries -- started a thread about killing his carPC and replacing it with an iPhone. Wow! -- he's looking way into the future, and I'm really excited about that work; Josh and I had already been pondering the possibilities in that direction. Read about Bugbyte's work here. I'm subscribed.

The iPhone route is more money: it's $320 with tax for the phone, so it's $129 more than the component build. It would go under pretty much the same AT&T plan I'm on already on with my 2-year old Windows Mobile 5 phone -- maybe a few bucks a month more. But with that I'd be glimpsing further into the future, and I could keep using the EeePC carPC while I follow along, or even help Bugbyte in his development program.

Ah, the choices . . .

I'll Stay the Course, For Now

I've been looking at all the options open to me for my carPC installation, and I'd really like to jump into the iPhone fray. But reality says it'll be a lot less expensive to just keep on in the direction I'm going now. In four months, my AT&T contract will roll around to its 20th month, and I'll be eligible for a $200 reduction in the price of the 16GB iPhone 3G, down from $499 to $299. That $200 would almost pay for a monitor (Gooddeals' Shark 8-inch touchscreen) plus the iPhone composite video cable to drive it.

And the delay will give me time to finish developing what I have. Then, if transitioning to the iPhone project still seems like a wonderful idea, I can make the shift. In the meantime, I'll have a functioning carPC no matter which unit I play with.

There's another factor here: I'm in the midst of relocating from south Florida to the Atlanta area, so I won't be working on the carPC much for a few weeks. By the time I get back into active development, my excitement about BugByte's iPhone project will have slowed a little, and I can look at all of it with a cooler head.

The things I need to do right now are to decide on a keyboard, build a way-too-big double-DIN case for the M2-ATX and a couple of hubs, and get the system running on 12V power.

I'll have more to tell about those parts of the project soon.

Originally Posted by WraithJ

Glad to see your sticking with the eee pc, im gonna rip mine apart and re-build into an old heaunit case single din! Ive had an iPhone since they came out, and I love it but i know its just not what I want for my in-car entertainment, its great as an extra like the G-Force meter I use but other than that I fear its just under powered

Destroy My EeePC?
I'm still not sure I'm sticking with the EeePC, but the issue isn't that the EeePC is inadequate, but rather that I hate to tear it apart. I want a screen built-in, and each time I think about destructing the EeePC, I just put it off.

My next door neighbor in Florida liked my EeePC so much that he just bought one, too. He's had it two days, and both he and his wife love it. Long-term user reports come back generally upbeat. And here I am talking about destroying mine -- how does that make sense to me?

I want a screen built into the dash; there's no question of that. I want a small PC built into the dash -- like the Intel D945GCLF2 Mini-ITX (or the EeePC's guts). And I pretty clearly want to move to the iPhone or an Android phone at some point. Then I want to work on getting the phone and the PC to work together.

For now, though, the EeePC stays in the hole in my dash. It works fine there. Maybe after I get moved, I can bring myself to cut it up, but it'll be hard to do. It may just live there for quite a while . . .

Originally Posted by will1384

You could always go with a head unit that has all the things you want . . .
The main reason . . . that I did not go with something like that, is that I want to have a choice in the software that it runs, how it looks, and whats its able to do. The computer offers more flexibility, at least for the things I want to do . . .

Well, I already have a head unit, and it's good, but limited. I'll keep it. But I want the same things you do, and a computer is a less-expensive way to get them.

Originally Posted by will1384

I am sure someday you will carry your desktop in your pocket, and it will wirelessly connect to your screen and peripherals, no matter where you are, sit at home and its your desktop/entertainment/video game system, get in your car and its your radio/gps/video player, and at work its your desktop computer, no matter where you go all your stuff is with you, all in something the size of a cell phone.

Yes, I agree; something like that is in our future. I don't know that we'll carry everything with us, so much as we'll carry the core unit and our personal data, and link to the tools around us. I don't need my car's OnBoard Diagnostic system in my cellphone; it can stay in the car. But I like having the phone, the phonebook, email, messaging, the GPS, plus music and maybe even a couple movies, right in my pocket. I can have all that already. What I don't have is a way to dynamically mesh the capabilities of my car's system to my phone's system, eliminating redundancy.

Originally Posted by will1384

And that's all nice and good, but we're not just there yet, and I dont see that happening for at least 10 years, I am sure there will be things like that before then, and even now you could pull it off, but I am talking every one using something like that.

I'll be surprised if it takes ten years. It may not be very affordable at first, but I see it happening within a couple of years, and spreading fast. Look how short a time it's taken for the iPod to become ubiquitous.

Carmakers have to do something to get us into their cars, so I'll bet they get on board fast. Ford's working with Microsoft on Sync, and it's moving along nicely, considering giant corporations are behind it. They have the multiple detriments of fearful, reluctant lawyers and God Only Knows how many people to sign off on improvements. I hope it's wildly successful, and that they innovate like crazy with it. It would be nice to see people buying American vehicles because they have leading-edge technology.

I'm hoping some visionaries -- like the Apple team or the Google team -- will develop the basics of this mashup of fixed, mobile and portable technologies, make it an open standard, and turn it loose for everyone to link systems into. I certainly want them to make money with it, but it'll take longer if they decide they have to monetize it right away. Apple clearly has its finger on the pulse of designing technology for human interface, and Google has a way of turning out amazing applications. Both are good at steadily improving their products.

Google seems particularly good at providing a free product to get market mass, and providing a more comprehensive product to buy. I wish they'd tackle the phone-PC interface. In fact, they may have, simply by releasing the Android phone spec. The presence of the Android and its possibilities make me reluctant to leap into the iPhone before I get a feel for which one will turn into the best platform. Still, I don't want to wait much longer, because my two-year-old Windows Mobile 5 phone is getting increasingly flaky, and I'll need to make a move at some point in the near future.

I like the iPhone, but it's a proprietary (closed) system, and that just grates on me. Android may prove to be the more open and flexible system, but -- compared to the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones -- it's a pretty small market for developers who want to turn a profit, right now. If Android development doesn't take off, I'll go with the iPhone. I don't see Blackberry as much of a player in this market, although I carry one for corporate use.

Originally Posted by will1384

I guess what I am trying to say is, it seams a little premature to go down that road, when it offers little or no reward over just putting a regular computer in there, still though I hear the same thing from my friends, "just get an Ipod" or "just get GPS" when they see my Car Computer . . .

I agree, it's premature to pitch the PC. I'm going to keep it in the car until I can replace it with something better. And yep, I have friends -- and family -- who ask why I need the carPC, "all this technology", etc. A lot of people simply don't see the fascination in making something that hasn't existed before. I suspect that response has gone on since communication began between humans: "Oh, Tharg, why go exploring? Isn't this cave good enough?"

Sometimes I just have to get to the innards of things and see if they can do more, or work better, or go faster. All it ever takes is time and money. The benefits are new friends, new education, an agile mind, and some nifty toys. Seems like a good deal to me.

Originally Posted by will1384

. . . and I guess someone has to be a guinea pig/explorer. What ever you decide, Good Luck

Yep, someone has to pioneer. That's you, and me, and all these other crackpots on MP3Car. We're in terrific company.

Good luck back atcha . . .

Big Changes on the Horizon . . .

Asus has announced the some interesting new devices: EeePC T91 and EeePC T101H convertible tablets, and EeeTop ET1602 and the ET1603 one-piece systems. These announcements clearly indicate there are some major changes coming.

Change #1: Lower Prices for Touchscreens
The new devices mean touchscreen production is ramping up. And it means that, at their current prices, the small LCD touchscreens we currently use in cars -- from Lilliput and Xenarc -- cost more than an entire touchscreen computer from Asus. That can't last long; touchscreen panel prices will drop.

A touchscreen monitor is just the display portion of a netbook plus some electronics. In the netbook, the video display "board" has shrunk so much that it's just a chip built into the netbook's motherboard. The touchscreen's electronics are separate, even in Lilliput and Xenarc models. So, to start producing small touchscreen monitors, we only need to take the existing low-cost LCD screen and touch panel, add the electronics, and put it in a case with connections; then it's time to turn the marketing guys loose.

Someone is bound to look at the growing carPC and secondary display market and jump in with daylight-readable LCD panels in the 7-inch to 10-inch range at far more reasonable prices than we're currently paying. We may see higher resolutions, too.

There are some screens already out there:

• The Shark 8-inch touchscreen LCD panel from Gooddeals18 is $162 plus shipping. Native resolution appears to be 800 x 600, but maximum is 1024 x 768. (A word of caution here: on every LCD panel I've seen, native resolution is the crispest. Extended resolutions can get fuzzier, so native resolution is easiest on the eyes.) Specs provided: brightness - 300, contrast - 320.
  
  
• The Nanovision MiMo UM-740 is a 7-inch touchscreen with a built-in camera and audio pass-through; it's only 800 x 480, but it's also only $199.99 shipped. It's pictured below. It requires no VGA connection -- it's USB-only, using DisplayLink technology. So far, they only function as additional displays, not primary displays; it's my bet that someone will find a workaround, or that they'll come out with new equipment allowing it to be a primary display. Specs provided: brightness - 350, contrast - 400. (This model is out of stock 'til March.)
  
  
  
  
  *** EDIT: these will work as a primary display. See RBasil's comments in the next post. ***
  
  
• For a secondary monitor with no touchscreen, camera, or sound, you can go to the link above and get the MiMo UM-710 for $129.99 shipped.

It looks to me like there's a shift happening in the touchscreen market right now.

Change #2: One-Piece CarPCs
If we take the Asus EeeTop unit shown below, we have a complete 15.6-inch touchscreen PC that's about 4cm (1.6 inches) thick, a unit that can mount directly into -- or onto -- the dash. Gateway has announced its competitor, the ZX2300. Most of us don't have the space for a big-screen system, but consider what's happening here: the whole computer is now not much bigger than the monitor. These would be great for mounting in a police car or other service vehicle, using a wireless keyboard with built-in mouse.

I'd expect that the next generations of these will bring some units that have smaller screens, ideal for passenger vehicles. I'd expect models with faster processors and separate high-performance graphics chips. It won't be long before a complete carPC is the same size as a current Lilliput monitor.

Change #3: Dockable CarPCs
Bugbyte and Fiberoptic have already started worklogs and initiated a whole forum on meshing phones with carPCs. The reduction in the cost of touchscreens simply hastens that timetable.

Others may simply pick up the whole carPC and move it from car to car, or from car to desk. GizmoQ, for instance, uses a docked Fujitsu Stylistic 4121 tablet, and he says this about a docking system:

Originally Posted by GizmoQ

For me it was the only option. I routinely drive three different cars and didn't want to build three CarPCs. Now each has a dock and the tablet moves seamlessly from one to another.

Big changes are coming in all the flavors of carPCs. This is really fun to be a part of . . .

The UM-740 wil work just fine as the primary display. The only issue is you don't see anything until the OS is finished booting and the software driver is loaded.

Originally Posted by rdholtz

Big Changes on the Horizon . . .

Change #3: Dockable CarPCs
Others may simply pick up the whole carPC and move it from car to car, or from car to desk. GizmoQ, for instance, uses a docked Fujitsu Stylistic 4121 tablet...

Big changes are coming in all the flavors of carPCs. This is really fun to be a part of . . .

Hey don't bring me into this theoretical discussion. I've been all over the major Tablet producers for almost ten years to move into this direction. Problem is - they're still too narrow-minded. I blame Microsoft! After publishing the Tablet XP architecture mandating active digitizers, all was lost.

Since then, if it doesn't support a corporate client-base its a rare feature. Only two dual-mode (active and passive for pen and touch) touchscreen Tablets have ever come to market. Tablets have gotten away from "full desktop powered docks." i.e., audio/video I/O - especially stereo line-in. The on-board I/O is becoming less and less instead of more in order to appeal to the mass corporate customer base. And processor speeds will continue to lag significantly because of heat and battery life issues.

Outdoor readable screens are a small niche market so they're not getting any major push anytime soon. Sure some manufacturers are playing with low-cost alternatives to what's being put into cellphones now, but the cellphone tech is still too expensive and problematic for 7-14" screens.

Maybe Netbooks will have a different marketing strategy, but I doubt it. Only time will tell.

P.S. You forgot to mention the HP Touchsmart desktops that came out last year. Very powerful systems, but even the "first adopters" didn't know what to do with them to maximize their potential. I installed RR on one and was impressed with the possibilities, but the system architecture would be clumsy for CarPC use.