Ipad mini in-dash installation

[epapp]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

One dude here thrown in a 8" touchscreen in the console. Looks fab. He is running Windows 7 off a very-tiny ITX computer (Intel CPU) and hides it in the frunk. The whole thing powers itself by a DC PSU. Cost him about $300 for the whole set-up I believe. Has GPS antenna, few wi-fi webcams, and using his iPhone 3G data plan to video conference and all. He also has a 2 terabytes HDD to record his track days and other night-time escape in the city. Pretty slick set-up and very creative in all honesty!

The HD touchscreen & fit literally looks factory. Its actually stunning

See, I would love to throw in a full computer because the possibilities are endless and I have so many spare everything for computer anything. The problem with that setup is the ease of use for connection reasons and for the nature of a full computer in general without a battery powering it.

The data connection with a full computer would be messy and potentially cumbersome to get it to connect. With some kind of tablet, its got a dedicated 4g antenna that it knows to use to connect with. (A full OS may require from time to time physically fiddling with a 4g dongle that you get from verizon or ATT/network connection fiddling from within the OS)

The other problem that links to the connection issue is booting up/down. When you shut off the car you will kill the computer (unless you rig a battery and run a few scripts to shut down the computer softly when it loses main power, which will work just fine)...BUT

Then you have the problem of booting up each time you start the car. Even with a SSD it will take a good 7 seconds to get loaded and ready to do whatever.

Thats just my opinion on a full computer install. I would love to do it but an iPad seems like what would work best for me. With the bluetooth adapter to the CDR220, an iPad would slip right into the dashboard and integrate nicely.

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