As awesome as the Raspberry Pi is, it still makes for a severely underpowered computer. If you want a proper computing experience for cheap, it’s going to be hard to beat the Utilite, an ARM-based computer that’s supposed to bring a full PC-like experience.
Made by Compulab, the entire computer is housed inside a small case that makes it look nothing more than a router. Measuring just 5.3 x 3.9 x 0.8 inches, it brings on heavy power for its size, ensuring a richer computing experience than most cheap, miniature computer kits.
The Utilite can be fitted with either a single-, dual-, or quad-core Cortex A9 processor (up to 1.2GHz clock speed), along with up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM and up to a 512GB SSD. The rest of the specs sheet is just as impressive, with WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, microSD support up to 128GB, HDMI, DVI, two BaseT ethernet ports, S/PDIF 5.1, stereo in/out, 4 USB ports, one microUSB slot, and a pair of RS232 serial ports. It supports OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0, OpenVG 1.1 and OpenCL EP, as well as multi-stream 1080p H.264 on-chip decoding, so this should handle multimedia viewing with ease. It’s also light on the power consumption, sipping just 3 to 8 W on a 10-16V power supply.
Compulab offers either Ubuntu or Android preloaded, so there’s a full ecosystem of applications out there to instantly get working on this thing. You can, most likely, throw in your favorite ARM-compatible OS of choice, of course.
Priced starting at just $99 for the single-core version, the Utilite definitely sounds like a sweet deal. It goes on sale in August.