Different tests have appeared on the net comparing the Intel Atom with the VIA Nano platform. You can find a test here  and here. Both tests confirm what the rumours had told us before: VIA's Nano CPU ourperforms the Intel Atom easily, and this comes at a higher electricity consumption (around 10 Watts more at 100% cpu)

VIA launched their Nano CPU (formerly known as "Isaiah") a few weeks ago. This new CPU is similar to the Atom CPU: A low power, low cost CPU. The socket will be the same as its' predecessor, the VIA C7. It will come in two variants: The "L" (Low power) series, used in desktops, and the "U" (Ultra Low Power) series, to be used in mini notebooks and small formfactor devices.
Since the Nano was so new, there were very few manufacturers who had boards with the Nano on display. The only one we could find was VIA itself. We will have to wait some more months to see manufacturers distribute motherboards with the Nano CPU. We are anxiously following the developments, and looking forward to test one of them in our lab!

2008 brings two exciting new platforms: The Intel Atom and the VIA Nano. Both are low power and low cost CPU's, which means you can have a motherboard and CPU for less than $100,- (and lower even). The performance of these CPU's is more than good enough for educational purposes (see our hardware testing results here for more on that!) The power consumption of these boards can be below 30 Watts.

Intel has launched it's new Atom CPU only two months ago, and already many manufacturers  were showing boards designed for Atom CPU's. Intel allows Atom CPU's only to be used in small computers, laptops with screens smaller than 10" and on mini-ITX boards. Intel does not allow the Atom CPU to be mounted on other formfactors than mini-ITX. The manufacturers on theComputex were complaining that Intel did not have enough CPU's available at this moment: They will be available from September. However, Intel also has it's own Atom boards (the "Little Falls" board) which are available in the market already. It seems they give their own boards priority over others, which explains the complaints of other manufacturers. One particular interesting board that we found at Computex is a new Elite ECS board. In fact, it is so new it's not even on their website yet! The price of the board promises to be below $75,-, and best of all: It is fanless! A sample of this board is coming our way, and we are very excited to give it a test in our lab.

A delegation of the Locolab visited the Computex hardware exhibition in Taiwan last week. Many low cost and low power solutions were present at this exhibition. However, we found that our needs were very specific and we have not been able to find a complete tailored solution for education. This means we will have to design our own solution. Generally speaking, there were two kinds of low power and/or low cost solutions available: Ready made consumer solutions (like the new EEE PC from Asus) or industrial appliances (for instance to be used in ATM's or kiosks). Our educational PC however, needs a slightly different approach: The industrial appliances are too expensive, and the consumer products are not sufficiently adapted to the harsh Cambodian situation where heat, dust and humidity will destroy the latest shiny consumer product in no-time! They also don't have anti theft measures and lack a ruggedness which is needed in schools. We have focussed on the different elements which allow us to design our own solution: Motherboards, power supplies, Solid State Drives (SSD's), computer casings and screens. Our findings will be posted to this site in the next few days.

The Locolab is a research into the various aspects of low cost computing for education. In order to organise and publish the results, a wiki, or the "Locowiki", has been created. The wiki does not only allow the researchers to publish their findings, it also allows other interested parties to put their own data in it. Please visit the wiki overhere: http://wiki.locolab.open.org.kh. The only thing anyone wishing to add information to the wiki  has to do is register and start adding information right away.
We hope that in the future, the Locowiki will be the place to find information on low cost computing for education. Already you can find some results on our hardware tests (including their power consumption and performance!) and some software scenario's which you can deploy in schools.

This week, Intel has launched the new Atom CPU. These low power CPU's come in five different flavours and are targeted for mobile internet devices. The biggest advantage of these CPUs is their low power consumption: The fastest Atom CPU has a TDP (thermal design power) of only 2.4 Watts. The Atom CPU's are the smallest Intel CPU's on the market today, as they measure only 13 by 14 mm. The cheapest one, the Z500, will have a clock speed of 800 MHz and a fsb of 400 Mhz. The price of this CPU will be around $45,- . The Z510 will run at 1.1 GHz, the Z520 at 1.33 GHz, the Z530 at 1.6 GHz and the Z540 at 1.86 GHz.

Intels commitment has added much to the low power market, which has been dominated by VIA the last few years. For schools that is very good news: More competition means that they will be able to have low cost computers, which are cheap in purchase and cheap in running them.

Mike Chin, at SilentPCReview has some great information about Power Supply Units (PSUs).

He has a section on Power Supply Fundamentals, a list of Recommended PSUs, and -specially interesting to us- a review of the Sparkle Power SPI220LE 80 Plus FlexATX, specialy well adapted for low-consumption, as it can maintain over 70% efficiency at 20W. usage.

After Intel's announcement of the D201GLY2 motherboard, a Celeron 220 based low-power-consumption board that does not require a fan, and with a price of US$75, several tests and reviews have appeared.

Mike Chin and Nicholas Geraedts have done an exhaustive analysis at SilentPCReview. One of their main conclusions is that it cannot be run on a tight box, it requires some air flow to maintain the CPU at reasonable temperatures. This flow could come from the Power Supply Unit.

Coming from the world of embedded devices, VIA has become an important contender on the front to power low consumption computers that are fit for the education market.

In particular, its VIA C7 1 GHz processor, drawing a maximum of 9 watts, and an average of less that 1 Watt, allows fanless solutions that are well fit for usage in classrooms, with sufficient speed to run Linux or Windows XP without any problems.

infoDev has assembled some links to full-text news items from a variety of sources about initiatives, projects and products related to low-cost ICT devices (excluding mobile phones) for the developing world.