Cell Phone Sized AMD APU Powered PC

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
This cell phone sized PC thing looks kinda neat even if the video is oozing with more marketing buzzwords than an Amway convention. According to the site, this thing has a quad core AMD A6-5200 with integrated HD8400, up to 8GB of DDR3 1600 (SODIMM), mSATA HDD up to 512GB and can run everything from Linux and SteamOS all the way up to Windows 8 Pro.
 
Last edited:
A 2ghz moible processor with an amd 8400 gpu? Good luck playing games with that. Gears of War, a 7-8 year old game, looked like it was running on low in that video. It's cool for other things, I suppose though.
 
Neat. I'm curious how it's real world performance is compared to say an i3-3225.
 
It seemed like an interesting concept for a device until I saw the docking station that needs to be at any location you want to use it at... Such that you cannot really take this to say... a friend's house, a workplace or to another business to give a demonstration...less you bring the dock that's twice as wide and large that WONT fit into a pocket. Sounded interesting but ultimately, I'm a bit ... colored unimpressed....
 
That is not true mobility because it needs a docking station for power. I know what would be the perfect idea lets make a computer that not only can you have great mobility with it but also the ability to power it on no matter where you are at! We shall name it ( laptop ) yes yes yes ! I am a genius !
 
WBurchnall said:
It seemed like an interesting concept for a device until I saw the docking station that needs to be at any location you want to use it at... Such that you cannot really take this to say... a friend's house, a workplace or to another business to give a demonstration...less you bring the dock that's twice as wide and large that WONT fit into a pocket. Sounded interesting but ultimately, I'm a bit ... colored unimpressed....
Click to expand...

I always have these ultra small build fantasies that utilize one of AMD's A10 APU's, and I end up getting the build so small that there's no room to work and then I think about why not just use a laptop instead. They're still fun thought exercises though.
 
WBurchnall said:
I'm a bit ... colored unimpressed....
Click to expand...
This. A "cartridge" PC. Do I have to blow on the contacts before inserting it into the dock?

I will stick with a laptop\tablet, which does include a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Things that as mentioned in a previous post, do not fit in your pocket..... like the dock.
 
That thing is badass! Seems like it is going to be around $350 retail and $300 for early backers according to their website. The fact you can get a 128GB SSD added to it is very nice. Extra docking bays are $90 for one and $170 for two. My niece got a divorce and her 5 year old daughter travels monthly to visit her dad. This would be perfect for her as it's a full PC with a powerful enough video section. Since it's going to have Mantle support by default; this thing will be even more awesome!
 
After I made reply I thought to myself wait a minute there is a device even smaller and I own it! My samsung galaxy s3 is a computer and can play games, surf the web, do office work you name it! Screen to small no prob just hook it up to a tv with hdmi.
 
Calling the HD8400 a gaming GPU is wishful thinking to put it nicely. I don't see what niche this product would fill. A laptop would be much more versatile, SFF PC's like Intel NUC's are likely cheaper, and the SteamBox has more power for games.
 
cool I can keep everything in one place, so I only need to lose one device for my life to be completely shattered lol
 
Are they passing it off as a complete PC in the cartridge or, is the major hardware in the dock (in other words, the cartridge is maybe ram and SSD and the dock is the actual CPU and GPU)?
 
It has that cool factor for the first few seconds and then... like others have said, you have to have a dock at each location you use it. Smartphones already support video output if you wanted to do a presentation in a pinch and you already have one with you (presumably)... Many tablets also support display output and something like a Surface Pro can have keyboard, mouse, video output via mini display port etc.... I'm having trouble seeing the value here.

Oh and also, they were talking about security. Well I guess it's great if the user has encrypted their drive but lots of people don't, so toting around something like this is just begging to get dropped out of a pocket etc. and since you aren't really paying attention to it between uses (like a smartphone), you might not notice it's gone during the day and then whamo, up to 512gb of data vanishes... into enemy hands. Again, hope it's encrypted, it's like always carnying around a portable HDD... they get lost.

This has the wow cool factor but I'm having trouble imagining how this is a benefit... It's definitely not a gaming PC like they are trying to claim.
 
The reason it is cell-phone sized is because it is a cell-phone caliber SoC.

It's a re-badged top-end Jaguar core, with graphics slower than that of the HD 4000:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6974/amd-kabini-review/6

Even with the slightly higher clock speed of the HD 8400 it still trails, and will get absolutely blown away by Haswell HD 4400/4600. Did I mention you can get that for about the same price ($289 base + you can scrounge a 32GB mSATA SSD + 4GB ram for $80).

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-D34010WYK-DisplayPort-i3-4010U-Consumer/dp/B00F3F381A
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
If SteamOS helps cutting the resources that windows like to hog up and Mantle can become mainstream this could be a win for AMD in 2 or 3 Generations down the road. Casual games would work quite nice for it right now.
 
Hallucinator said:
I thought that it's cool until after reading here that it needs a dock.

AMD, try again.
Click to expand...

Why the AMD hate here? They didn't make the device. If Intel had a competing product with a similar cost, I'm sure they would have used it. AMD is uniquely positioned since they purchased ATI.
 
Mantle could very well make this work! Ideally replacing the windows resource hog with a Linux distro would be really nice...
 
wonder how it does on a hot summer day?

299 for no ram/ssd - little pricey, that'll come down in time.

Raspberry-Pi got a new computer generation started. The ultra-micro.

As we all know, except for games/scientific work, computers have been fast enough for years.
 
Hey AMD, next time you do a product reveal, could you get an actual director to shoot it and not some director from the adult film industry? I haven't seen this many unnecessary close upshots since cheesy 90's porn, I have no clue what your product looks like.
 
ShamisOMally said:
Hey AMD, next time you do a product reveal, could you get an actual director to shoot it and not some director from the adult film industry? I haven't seen this many unnecessary close upshots since cheesy 90's porn, I have no clue what your product looks like.
Click to expand...

I don't think this device is being released by AMD. Sounds like a third party company that is simply using an AMD processor.
 
I have can think of several individuals in my support network who would greatly benefit from this device (exec who has a dock at home for his laptop and one at work for his laptop, who cracked his screen, never read the email I sent him requesting his auth to replace the screen, and only noticed it 7 months later, I am looking at you)
 
It's not cell phone size if it needs a docking device all the time.
 
It's cute! All it needs are a pair of cat ears or something on it and it'll be perfect. But yeah, it seems pretty much pointless since there are already laptops around with docking stations and tablets. Both of those can actually be used between places and not just when docked. Also, phones...
 
The portability aspect I think is meant to refer to the possibility that you have multiple docks in different places. It says so at their indiegogo page. E.g. at work, maybe couple in the home, one on the tv for gaming and another for your desk to be your PC.

It's not a bad idea, and we'll probably see more of this. It's already true that fully powered gaming PCs have gotten MUCH smaller in terms of their minimum size. I doubt it can or is meant to replace a gaming PC, but it can certainly replace a PS3/XBox 360 in a generation or two; or just be a little steambox type game rig.

But the tech just isn't quite good enough yet. It needs a bit more power and for less money. That's the second problem. Because this is an indie product, it's twice as expensive (or more) as it would be were it produced by an electronics corporation that enjoys benefits like having its own factories, and discounted bulk supplier rates. One of the main targets for this ought to be cheapskates like college students looking to have one machine that takes very little space and can be their PC and light game rig.
 
Not major innovsation, but I do welcome a new option.

But that boy sure got a pretty mouth! :D
 
Spidey329 said:
Why the AMD hate here? They didn't make the device. If Intel had a competing product with a similar cost, I'm sure they would have used it. AMD is uniquely positioned since they purchased ATI.
Click to expand...

Because it's cool to talk out of your ass around here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top