Anyone wired up a PC in their van?

Post by **powelly** » 24 Feb 2008, 18:49

Dan Wood wrote:Don't you just need an EEE PC and some velcro?

As far as laptops go, they're cheap as chips!

I got one for Christmas and its brilliant!

Post by **ringo** » 24 Feb 2008, 21:52

powelly wrote:
Dan Wood wrote:Don't you just need an EEE PC and some velcro?

As far as laptops go, they're cheap as chips!

I got one for Christmas and its brilliant!

Can you please explain why? I cant see whats so good about them. They arent that cheap.

Must have its good point cause people are raving about them - but what are they?

Ringo

Post by **Irish Pete** » 24 Feb 2008, 22:03

I've done this

I use a Mac laptop with a touch screen and then a TV in the back. I'll have a go at getting some pictures up when she comes back from the garage on Thursday if anyone's interested?

Pete

Post by **powelly** » 25 Feb 2008, 07:30

ringo wrote:
powelly wrote:
Dan Wood wrote:Don't you just need an EEE PC and some velcro?

As far as laptops go, they're cheap as chips!

I got one for Christmas and its brilliant!

Can you please explain why? I cant see whats so good about them. They arent that cheap.

Must have its good point cause people are raving about them - but what are they?

Ringo

OK.

To me the point of the eee is portability, I have a desktop for pure processing power with multiple monitors for screen real estate, I also have a 15 laptop that I used to carry when I needed it.

Now the eee is small, I mean really small, its the site of a hard back book and weighs less than a bag of sugar, so its small enough to drop in to whatever back I have with me and forget about it.

Your saying its not that cheap but I'm assuming at £200 your comparing it to cheap traditional laptops, but this isnt a fair comparison, you need to put it side by side with a UMPC (ultra mobile pc)like one of these There you will see the closest equivalent is a £400 obsolete model of the OQO.

Out of the box this thing just works, the flavour or linux installed will do everything you need for internet, office etc, However if your more used to windows all is not lost. a little tinkering around and you will soon have windows XP running, (i have xp, office 2007 and dreamweaver on mine).

Spec wise it does seem quite low, but the solid state hard disk makes all the difference, this is much faster that any standard hard drive and really does make up for the slow processor and small ram (this can be upgraded).

So for £200 you get a full working totally portable pc that will fit in your glove box or even a large coat pocket. What more could you want?

Oh and there is a nice hack to get the screen up to 1024 by 768!

Post by **lloyd** » 25 Feb 2008, 09:29

Bigger screen, bigger SSD (software on my notebook is 3GB), keyboard that normal size hands fit, longer battery life, etc. What is CPU speed anyway? Can't find it in specs.

Not saying it's not a great little piece and is exactly what some people need, but trying to compare it to a real notebook is bogus. Our Toshiba U205: 12 screen (3x bigger), core 2 duo 1.66GHzz (3.7x faster), 1GB mem (2x more), 120GB HDD (40x more), DVD/CD burner (none on EEE PC), 5 hours on battery, 300 x 225 x 34 (2x bigger) in size and weights 2.86kg (2x heavier) purchased last spring for £450 (2x more)... I'll use it instead of your Eee PC for now.

I do think the Eee PC has lots of potential with bigger screen (one that is case size) and bigger SSD.

Post by **ringo** » 25 Feb 2008, 09:50

powelly wrote: OK.

To me the point of the eee is portability, I have a desktop for pure processing power with multiple monitors for screen real estate, I also have a 15 laptop that I used to carry when I needed it.

Now the eee is small, I mean really small, its the site of a hard back book and weighs less than a bag of sugar, so its small enough to drop in to whatever back I have with me and forget about it.

Your saying its not that cheap but I'm assuming at £200 your comparing it to cheap traditional laptops, but this isnt a fair comparison, you need to put it side by side with a UMPC (ultra mobile pc)like one of these There you will see the closest equivalent is a £400 obsolete model of the OQO.

Out of the box this thing just works, the flavour or linux installed will do everything you need for internet, office etc, However if your more used to windows all is not lost. a little tinkering around and you will soon have windows XP running, (i have xp, office 2007 and dreamweaver on mine).

Spec wise it does seem quite low, but the solid state hard disk makes all the difference, this is much faster that any standard hard drive and really does make up for the slow processor and small ram (this can be upgraded).

So for £200 you get a full working totally portable pc that will fit in your glove box or even a large coat pocket. What more could you want?

Oh and there is a nice hack to get the screen up to 1024 by 768!

Very interesting - thanks for that.

So if you install windows XP on it, does it use most of the memory?

Do you think you could put car related apps on - like Satnav and a reversing camera?. With only two usb slots i suppose thats all it could do (no other usb to access an external hard drive for music and divx etc.).

If these things can be done, then its looking like a fairly cheap in car pc. To be fair, you cant stick a laptop on your dash (well, you could but its mahoosive) just for a reversing camera and sat nav.

Does it come with a remote control ?

Thanks

Ringo

Post by **ringo** » 25 Feb 2008, 09:57

One other thing that is confusing me about CarPuters...

They all seem to be fairly low spec CPU's. However, they all seem to run windows multimedia centre and maybe a front end touchscreen driver like road runner. Do they work that well?

Im also concerned about which video card to use for a touchscreen. Does it need to be anything fancy or will a simple onboard graphics card do ?

I would love to convert my aging PIII 9Ghz into a CarPC - the power supply seems reasonable at £50. I imagine the main expense will be to buy the touchscreen?

Cheers

Ringo

Post by **powelly** » 25 Feb 2008, 13:34

ringo wrote:Very interesting - thanks for that.

So if you install windows XP on it, does it use most of the memory?

with a trimmed down xp office and dreamweaver I have 1.5gb free.

ringo wrote:
Do you think you could put car related apps on - like Satnav

and a reversing camera?. With only two usb slots i suppose thats all it could do (no other usb to access an external hard drive for music and divx etc.).

Yes without a doubt, it has a web cam so reversing camera isnt a problem, and as for the gps, im playing with that idea at the moment, it works with my bluetooth gps receiver so I just need to find a good software package.

ringo wrote:
Does it come with a remote control ?

Thanks

Ringo

no but I have seen bluetooth applications to use a mobile phone as a remote. have a look at http://www.eeeuser.com/ there are loads of interesting mods.

lloyd is right, an eee pc inst to be compared with a laptop, however I haven't used my laptop outside of the house since I got the eee.

Post by **powelly** » 25 Feb 2008, 14:22

lloyd wrote:Bigger screen, bigger SSD (software on my notebook is 3GB), keyboard that normal size hands fit, longer battery life, etc. What is CPU speed anyway? Can't find it in specs.

Size isnt everything you know!

[img:482:344]http://www.motorhomehire.co.nz/images/4 ... uxe_sm.jpg[/img]

Sometimes bigger doesnt always mean better

Post by **sheffieldcoljules** » 25 Feb 2008, 15:31

Well i MUST get my pc fitted within 2 months when i go on my euro shagfest so if anyone is around the Sheffield area...wants to meet up one day at my pad, we can go through all the things trial and error etc.. i have wifi here, so you can test that and got millions of cables etc etc and spares.

More info on the touch screen would be good.

Im useless at woodwork and fitting things, but im not bad with a electronics (although on a camper its new to me)

Post by **lloyd** » 25 Feb 2008, 16:09

Powelly, I understand how nice the Eee PC is for simple tasks... like GPS, rear camera, etc. How fast does XP load?

Post by **powelly** » 25 Feb 2008, 16:20

lloyd wrote:Powelly, I understand how nice the Eee PC is for simple tasks... like GPS, rear camera, etc. How fast does XP load?

cold boot 25 seconds, wake from standby 4 seconds.

My desktop cant manage that.

Post by **lloyd** » 25 Feb 2008, 16:45

That's fast enough. Wifi, backup camera, GPS and external HDD with mp3's would be perfect.

Post by **Other-Power** » 25 Feb 2008, 19:50

Only problem i can see from it happerning to me is, when a laptop or pc is powered via an inverter then a gps device thats plugged in via usb etc will not work due to the inverter.

Just a heads up

Jon

Post by **lloyd** » 25 Feb 2008, 20:14

Other-Power wrote:Only problem i can see from it happerning to me is, when a laptop or pc is powered via an inverter then a gps device thats plugged in via usb etc will not work due to the inverter.

Just a heads up

Jon

Does this apply if using a 12v supply to laptop?