PC Analogous To HD200?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Wasn't evident to me either if it ran Windows.

It can't. It's a completely different architecture than PCs.

[loonsailor]

Check out the Fit-PC http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page. There are a lot of small, low-power ARM-based platforms, but it sounds like you want to run Windows, so those won't work for you. The fit-PC looks like a nice PC-compatible system, though I haven't actually had my hands on one.

There are two advantages of the HD-200 over any of these, as I see it. First, none of these tiny, cheap computers are optimized for high quality display. They won't have hardware mpeg decoding like the HD-200, so I'm not sure how well they'll work for watching HD, and generally won't have HDMI, composite or component outputs. Also, the HD-200 just works. Minimal configuration, no hassles, no fan, very low power. I like that a lot. Of course, you do lose the ability to do general "PC stuff", like run a browser or watch Hulu.