Mini PCs with built-in batteries are cool. I’m currently testing the Ainol Mini PC and it’s very inspiring from a ‘project’ point of view, especially when you can run it wirelessly and knowing that Windows 10 will have some nice casting features. The Voyo V2 is coming soon though and it includes a battery and extra storage option.
Voyo V2 Mini PC
For $134 you can get a Voyo V2 mini PC with an Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core, 2 GB RAM and 32 GB eMMC. You’ll find similar specs in the Intel Compute Stick and the Ainol Mini PC. There’s a 17 Wh battery inside and an additional 64 GB ‘SSD.’ The Voyo V2 has and HDMI port, analogue audio port, microSD port and full-size USB 2.0 port. There’s a Gigabit Ethernet port too which makes it a little more interesting as a home-theatre box that streams from network-attached storage.
The ‘SSD’ is not defined so we could be talking about something as simple as an internal USB stick or SD card but if it’s an mSATA or M.2 interface it becomes quite interesting for upgrading.
If you don’t want the extra 64 GB of storage you can opt for an 8000 mah (30 Wh) battery pack which should keep the unit running for 10 hours or more. As a radio streamer or local audio player it could run in Connected Standby mode for days!
It’s a shame that we’re not seeing the new mini PCs with a full 64-bit X5 or X7 processor but they still have enough power to do some impressive computing and should get a boost with Windows 10. I’ll be looking in depth at some of the BIOS and security features of these devices soon so if you’ve got questions about Linux booting or disk encryption, let me know below. If you have any ideas as to how you’d use a mini PC, especially one with a built-in battery, let us know in the comments below.
imagine this as part of a distributed cluster of Mini-Linux servers for portable WEB, Phone systems, media server ,etc.. self-powered so in event of power fail could still stay up ready when the network returns…
I am interested in Linux on these type of small mini pcs.