Reader onebir tipped me about a low cost Intel Atom based PC on Aliexpress with some decent specs. Kingdel NC270 PC is based on Intel Atom N270 processor @ 1.6 Ghz with 2 GB RAM and 8 GB SSD. It is capable of decoding 720p HD video and features lots of ports which could make it a good entry-level digital signage player among other things.
Here are the specs of this nettop.
- Processor – Intel Atom n270
- System Memory – 2 GB (in most places, but it’s also written 1GB in one place in the description)
- Storage – 8GB SSD (16GB and 320GB version is also available)
- Connectivity:
- 10/100 Ethernet
- WiFi (optional?)
- Serial Ports – female DB-25, compatible SPP, ECP and EPP | male DB-9, compatible FIFO prefix = st1 16C550
- 2 PS/2 port (mouse, keyboard)
- USB – 6 USB host 2.0 ports
- 1x PCI slot
- Video Output – VGA port | Composite
- Audio – Speaker output and Microphone input.
- Power Supply – Input: 100-140V and 200-260V, 45-65Hz; Output: 12V,48W; external 48W AC adapter
- Dimensions – 21 x 14 x 4 cm
Kingdel NC270 comes pre-installed with Windows XP Embedded and software to use it as a thin client with support for Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP 6.1. But since this is an x86 platform you could also install other version of Windows (XP/Vista/7) and/or Linux distributions instead.
The device sells for around $132 on Aliexpress including shipping.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Its some kind of expensive crap, cause you can buy netbook for such price on sales.
Does anyone know if it’s fanless? I think with the Atom there’s a good (or rather bad) chance that it does include a CPU or chipset fan.
No HDMI = No party
@rm
A pre-sales person on Aliexpress told me it’s fanless. Not sure how reliable this answer is.
@Naismith
I think there’s one with HDMI for a bit more. But isn’t 1080p ‘the standard’ for video now…
@ killewarez – if you can get similar spec’d netbooks for this price, tell us when you see them. They’re at lease twice as much on aliexpress (& ship by DHL => would get taxed.)
Oh crap – Linux incompatibility problems with the GPU: http://www.geekosystem.com/nvidia-loses-10-million-gpu-order/
@onebir
If you read the details in this article, it says the drivers work OK with x86 and x86_64, but the Chinese needed the GPU to work with the MIPS architecture. And AFAIK this was for different NVidia PU (Geforce) not the Ion GPU. So even though it is a problem it does not affect the product mentioned above.
@cnxsoft
That’s good 🙂 It’d be nice if it worked ok with Linux – it sounded like it might make a nice media center/NAS/etc device; quite a bit more powerful/flexible than the ARM ones, but not too much more expensive.
This atom processor is a shit, i have this processor in my notebook and is the worst, for everybody this is the first atom chip it was out in the market in the 2008, almost 5 years chip.
1.2 points in windows 7
17 Watts/h in the notebook
Perhaps with other atom chip… a N2600 or N2800.. but one n270, no.
@pepe
That’s clear that it’s not a beast. But I’m currently using a notebook with Atom N455 which seems to have similar benchmark results to N270 (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+N455+%40+1.66GHz), and I find it quite usable. I asked the seller not to install Windows 7 because there’s only 1GB memory and I’m running Windows XP and Ubuntu on that netbook.
There’s no doubt if power consumption is important, use newer chip or even better ARM based solutions.
It all depends what you want to do with this PC. If you want to use it for normal Windows XP/7 usage, it’s true you may find it sluggish.
I’m a bit thrown off with the 720p HD Video Cap, I know that a bare Atom Proc can only handle that but the Nvidia ION chipset offloads video playback at least for h264 & Youtube @ 1080p resolutions.
Here’s one with similar specs (haven’t checked carefully) but a D525 for $175: http://tinyurl.com/8unkgtn
D525’s benchmark is ~9% faster than my laptop :p. I think $10-15 of the price difference vs the other one is the shipping method.
^^^But NO HDMI :s
I can’t see any mention of Nvidia ION gpu on aliexpress.
@csgabe
You are correct there is no Nvidia Ion mentioned on that Aliexpress listing, by the way for those complaining that there isn’t any HDMI, keep in mind that this ATOM chipset only supports VGA out through the GMA950 Graphics chip, that graphics chip never supported HDMI-out.
Ok – here’s a D525 one with HDMI: http://tinyurl.com/8zez3uq
But expensive (esp FEDEX shipping) 🙁
Or maybe this one http://tinyurl.com/95mn8yh with an AMD E350. HDMI but apparently Linux video drivers for this aren’t so good. 🙁
Risking talking to myself :p I just found a stack of these, with HDMI & various processors (D525, D2550, AMD E350) & graphics cards, in the $180+ range, (inc China Post):
http://tinyurl.com/9vl7bdh
The sales person told me they can pre-install Linux, so they should know whether the graphics support/video playback is good under Linux. I’ll tell her about this thread.
@csgabe
OK Sorry my mistake. I’m now used to have a GPU inside the chip, so I made a quick search Atom N270 GPU, and found something with Nvidia ION so I just assumed NVidia ION was part of the SoC, which is obviously not the case with Intel Atom CPU.
But is a solution for nas usenet and core server
Since I don’t seem to be able to comment on liliputing, here’s a $220ish Celeron G530 non-NUC:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product//800900_719092319.html
Interested in the opinions of the CNXians…
(Same store has some pricier i3-7 models, but they need fans.)