14 DAY TRIAL // One very popular concept in the United States is the CarPC, this type of hardware being a lot more practical than your car radio, even if it does have a retractable touch-screen. Having the possibility of storing thousands of pictures and melodies, being able to connect to the Internet through a wireless or satellite connection, having a video card which is able to actually let you play games other than cards is quite interesting to have.
The interest in this industry I believe began because of the automobile owners and somebody with a lot of spare time on his hands, money and an idea, that's all it took. I've seen a lot of custom PCs specially fitted to suit the cars electrical system and designed to occupy little space and all they way up to dashboard integration of an LCD monitor. This idea soon got popular and a lot of people created their own custom CarPCs, but there had to come a time when somebody would turn the idea into a moneymaker.
Taking it from there, now you see a lot of offers from different custom car builders, which besides the CarPC give you an entire package of modifications for your car, at a hefty price. But some people just want the CarPC, they don't need anything else or don't have the time to build one themselves. This is where Shuttle PC comes into action with their CarPC.
It comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo T2400 processor on an Intel 945GM chipset motherboard. The memory used is SO-DIMM, makes sense since it uses a mobile processor. The design of its casing resembles a passive cooling system also encountered on large amplifiers and speaker systems. The CarPC draws its power from the car's battery and has a voltage regulator which allows it to withstand voltage fluctuations from 10.6 to 16V. Its maximum power consumption while in full load operating mode is of 65Watts.
It also features a 7.1 channel sound card, with four USB 2.0 ports, LAN connector, DVI connector and PS/2 mouse and keyboard inputs. You might call it a full featured computer, being more rugged than a notebook, but it lacks an optical unit, input capabilities being limited to the USB ports and transfer is achievable through the network connection.