First Menlow Board Released

nerdyH writes "German board vendor Lippert has unveiled what it claims to be the first motherboard based on Intel's 'Menlow' chipset for ultra-mobile PCs. The CoreExpress-Menlow is smaller than a credit card, yet clocks to 1.5GHz, has 1GB of RAM soldered onboard, has multiple PCI Express lanes, USB 2.0, HD audio, an IDE interface, and a digital LVDS video interface. The board is the first in a proposed 'CoreExpress' standard motherboard form-factor measuring 2.6 by 2.3 inches (65 x 58 mm)."

Comments

And it's probably going to be damn expensive

[Enleth]

Which is a pity - it would be perfect for a SLAM-capable robot project I've got on hold since half a year because even the crappiest embedded motherboards out there are damn expensive when you want to buy just one or two of them and are a student...

Applications barrier to entry

[tepples]

The Ars Technica analysis implied that it would be slower, clock-for-clock, and use more power than most ARM variants. I think the point of this board that is that proprietary applications for Windows Mobile, which are compiled for ARM, tend to have less functionality than the corresponding proprietary apps for Windows XP, which are compiled for i686. People want full-size versions of familiar apps on a pocket-size device, and only a processor with the i686 instruction set can deliver this.

Re:Applications barrier to entry

[poot_rootbeer]

I think the point of this board that is that proprietary applications for Windows Mobile, which are compiled for ARM, tend to have less functionality than the corresponding proprietary apps for Windows XP, which are compiled for i686. People want full-size versions of familiar apps on a pocket-size device, and only a processor with the i686 instruction set can deliver this.

Riiiiiiiiiight.

It was very smart of Intel's engineers to design and implement the CABPWAPF (Clear 'Artificial Barrier to Proprietary Windows App Performance' Flag) instruction that's in the i686 instruction set.

Re:But does it have crypto instructions?

[TheRaven64]

In a mobile device, encryption is very important. If you have any important data on your local disk, you are going to want to encrypt it - ideally encrypting the entire volume, which means you need encryption for any I/O, including swapping. You also need encryption for pretty much any WiFi usage and for a lot of general network stuff (e.g. IMAPS, SMTPS).