Shuttle has added two new tiny computers to its XPC nano line of products. The Shuttle XPC nano NS02A and NS02E both measure 5.6″ x 5.6″ x 1.1″ and feature fanless designs and power consumption of just 5 watts.
But while most Shuttle computers are designed for Intel processors, the new models are both powered by Rockchip RK3368 octa-core ARM Cortex-A53 processors and ship with Android 5.1 software.
The good news is that they’re cheap: the NS02A sells for just $142, while the NS02E is available for $162.
The main difference between the two models is that the NS02E supports Power-over-Ethernet, while the NS02A uses a separate power adapter.
Both models feature 2GB of RAM, 16GB of eMMC storage, support for an optional 2.5 inch drive bay, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Miracast wireless display support, a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI port, three USB 2.0 ports and an SD card reader
Shuttle says the systems are “particularly intended for digital signage and thin client applications,” but they’d also probably make decent media streamers or Android game systems.
via MiniMachines
Half the time I’m trying to understand this sort of effort from OEMs and really I can’t. I can’t even take Android seriously on tablets (use the phone btw), let alone on desktop. Chrome OS is somewhat more serviceable.
$150 could probably be better spent on used or refurb white boxes that’ll run proper Linux distros no?
I agree. As a consumer product these don’t seem to make any sense. Maybe in industrial setting because of the fanless design and PoE.
Android as desktop makes little sense in general so this can be used only for purpose-built applications, typically running only one application all the time.
Also, this SOC + RAM is ridiculously underpowered for desktop workloads even among ARM solutions. Cortex-A72 should be the bare minimum nowadays for any kind of desktop/laptop attempt.
It’s right there in the article. Systems that are “particularly intended for digital signage and thin client applications” are specifically *not* intended for powering “desktop workloads” in the first place.
i wonder if these would be able to run chromeos directly.
Android 5.1? Yikes. I was potentially interested until I saw that. It’s over two years out of date.
They’re intended for industrial uses (like digital signage), not consumers. No doubt you could get a hefty discount if you ordered a thousand of them at the same time.
7 doesnt work with hdcp yet either that’s another reason DRM content much more friendly on 5.1 and 6.0 right now
With past Google support history I think they will support and update Android 5.1 for a couple of years yet. Hell, 4.0 and 4.1-4.3 are only slated to lose support at the end of 2017. I have a tablet with 4.1.1 on it and I bought it four years ago. Whether this mini-signage box will actually take Google updates is another issue entirely but assuming it supports Google Play such things as anti-virus and entertainment apps such as YouTube and Netflix should be fine to run on this thing well into 2019.