Then finally, the pièce de résistance, the carputer. Ever since PC's came out, I've wanted to put one in a car. I can remember plotting & planning one of these in an old Porsche I had back in the 80's. Luckily, I didn't do it then, because the systems are sooooo much better now. The software guru & I started configuring this over a year ago, and it has a 1.6 GHz, Dual Core Atom processor with the nVidia ION chipset, 4GB of RAM, and a 60GB Intel SSD, so it's quite snappy, even with Win7. To this we added a dual DIN 7" Lilliput touch screen which had the transflective mod done, so its brightness and useability are fine in direct sunlight. Centrafuse 3.0 is the software front end for everything, and it's very intuitive. The feature set that we designed (and built) was:
No moving components (ie no disk drives or CD/DVD drives). Everything is solid state.
Full access to AEM computer for tuning/monitoring/digital gauges & logging
MP3 Music from SDD or USB Flash Disk
HD AM/FM Radio
XM Satellite Radio
GPS Navigation
WiFi
Mobile G3/G4 Broadband
Hands Free Cell via Bluetooth (Ready, but I don’t own a cell phone)
Remote A/V Inputs & Outputs, USB & Ethernet (all located in center console)
The main system unit is located under the driver’s seat, so the only component that shows is the touchscreen. Sorry for the fingerprints, but it’s a touchscreen!
Booting up and launching Centrafuse:
Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” playing. There’s some great bass in this tune!
Now the only problem left is to figure out how to raise & lower the Supra's antenna when the HD radio is playing!
I'll take some more pics showing the rest of the features as we get the bugs worked out and the different antennas connected, but my preliminary impressions are that the system is just awesome. Makes me want to spend time just sitting in the car playing with it, and listening to music!