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VIA Introduces A New Laptop Motherboard

Posted by timothy on from the treasuring-diversity dept.

arrasmith writes "It looks like there is going to be an upgrade to that non-expensive $800 Linux laptop. VIA just came out with a new laptop motherboard based on the faster Nehemiah core for the C3. You can get all the specs at the Antaur homepage. If they stay near the $800 cost I can see this one selling pretty well. And they would have a great mobile media system if they added a hardware DivX decoder on top of the hardware DVD decoder. :) And now that the Linux drivers are starting to mature and the sources are finally starting to come out, by the time this is released to the U.S. market it should be a great little Linux laptop."

11 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Finally... by Kai_MH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Via CPU + Linux = Sweet stuff. Seriously, it's about time there was an inexpensive Linux Laptop. I might even consider getting it instead of a new mini-ITX system. Whee!

    1. Re:Finally... by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember Cyrix MI and MII processors as the "I can buy this on a retail job part-time salary when I was 16" processors which wickedly out performed any economical intel processor of the time.

      In fact I recall my 486SLC/66 had desperate troubles playing mp3s yet my MI/133 [or 166 I forget] would sail through them with power to spare. My 233Mhz MII was even sweeter.

      At the time I could put a mobo+cpu together for like 200$ or so.

      My current processor cost 225$ alone [iirc].

      Oh yeah and as another poster pointed out the Cyrix cores were much better with heat than intel/amd. The C3 is even better.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:Finally... by JCholewa · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > Since when is a VIA CPU sweet?

      Since they started using solid, low power cores based on Centaur team designs.

      > Remember Cyrix anyone?

      You mean the team that VIA disbanded when they decided to go with primarily Centaur-derived technology? What about them?

      --
      -JC
      http://www.jc-news.com/coding/SFi/
      (the above contains exaggerations, but less so than parent)

  2. 800 bucks by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Check out Got Apex. You can get a full featured 14 or 15 inch-screen Dell for less than 800 bucks when you use the numerous discounts and rebates available. Or even better get a refurbed iBook for a little more.

  3. what i wonder... by intermodal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    is how overall performance compares. I can get a refurbished IBM ThinkPad coming off corporate lease with a Pentium III circa 700MHz, and know for a fact that the motherboard is fast. I've seen too many motherboards not able to handle their speed to give it a lot of credence without proving it. Thinkpad, on the other hand, has been consistently rugged and reliable for me.

    --
    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  4. Real men build their own refrigerators... by poptones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Very cool. So I can buy a laptop motherboard separate from the laptop itself? So I could, in theory, pick up a cheap(er) used laptop, machine a cool new case from plastic, and roll my own transportable PC?

  5. Motherboard? by binaryDigit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    VIA just came out with a new laptop motherboard

    I can't find any info on any motherboard. Everything they have is only about the cpu. Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but can anyone point me to where the VIA site discusses the actual motherboard. I was getting very jazzed thinking that I might be able to purchase a motherboard and use it for some projects (low heat, low power, small form factor, nice).

  6. Is is any good? by roumada · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With all the problems I have with the VIA chipset in my current PC, I'd hesitate before buying a laptop with their motherboard/processor. I'd much rather see nvidia get around to that nForce mobile chipset-- but that probably wouldnt be targeting the low price side of the market.

  7. hardware divx/dvd saves battery power. by aoteoroa · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The more efficient cpu, and hardware divx allows laptops to be created with smaller batteries, and since batteries are one of the heaviest components this equates to much lighter laptop designs.

    blockquote from their site:

    With the workload distributed across the whole platform, rather than being concentrated on the processor, the VIA Antaur processor has to do less work, saving battery life while delivering smooth 30 frames per second DVD playback.
  8. $800! by rindeee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can buy a Mobile Celeron 1.2GHz laptop with USB2, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, 12.x" screen, 256MB, 25GB, with WindowsXP Home pre-installed for $799 at my local Sam's Club. Whatever VIA does better cost about half what's out there now (and it easily could). A unit equipped similar to the one above with everything VIA puts on a mobo with no OS installed for about $500 would be reasonable me thinks.

  9. Yes, it is! by Fefe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Try running Linux 2.5 on an nForce. What, no network driver? Well, who needs one of those these days, right? Or even try running *BSD!

    I own an nvidia graphics card and am happy with it because some lunatics ported the nvidia driver to the 2.5 kernels. But the nforce users are pretty much lost.

    Intel chipsets tend to be well supported as well, but let me mention these: "Winmodem" and "Centrino Wiress LAN". Good luck running OpenBSD on one of those. Apart from that, Intel chipsets are expensive and historically never performed well, especially on notebooks.

    If I had to buy a new computer tomorrow, I would only even consider VIA and SiS. Both chipset companies are usually well supported by Linux and BSD, and their hardware is supported as soon as it is on the market. With Intel, you usually have to wait a few years until the hardware is obsolete and then Intel will release some driver under some non-GPL license (see the e100 driver for Linux, which was only recently released as GPL).

    VIA and SiS may not be the highest performance chipsets around, but they work well, have absolutely no stability issues (except maybe under Windows) and are well supported. And "well supported" outweighs anything else anyway. I'm too old to run around in circles around nvidia or Intel, begging for even a binary only driver to get my machine to work at all.