I Want A Mini-Pcie Slot In My Pandora-2

[Vitel]

I noticed that OQO2 (which is approximately the same size as Pandora) has a mini PCI-E slot. So users are free to replace/upgrade a wireless chip.
Is there enough room to fit this slot and a wireless board in the Pandora case? I think this may be a very significant advantage for the Pandora-2 project (besides new CPU, etc).

 

[mali]

^ Are you sure about that? Mini-PCIe slots and cards are huge and there just aren't enough accessories available to warrant such a design, imo.

edit:
Besides, OMAP has no PCI bus, afaik.

 

[PhillipJ]

I have never seen anyone use a PCI-E slot, mini or otherwise. USB + bluetooth + wifi covers everything I can think of connecting.

 

[SNESFAN]

I would like a mini-pcie slot, there are many 3g and wwan modems and what-have-you for mobile broadband. Something internal would be more preferred than an external solution.

Mobile wifi routers are good alternative, but it is just one more thing to carry around with you. And the ones in your phone drain battery like nobody's business.

 

[taito]

This would be great to have so we can use SDHC cards in our pandoras.

 

[skeezix]

There are some GPU's you cna get for mini-pcie i I recall right; but this is very intel-specific sort of stuff usually, for laptops..

jeff

 

[alucart1984]

This would be great to have so we can use SDHC cards in our pandoras.

what do you mean, I thought we already could use SDHC cards in the Pandora?

 

[skeezix]

You certainly can

 

[alucart1984]

You certainly can

Phew!! I just about had a heart attack :blink:

 

[WizardStan]

This would be great to have so we can use SDHC cards in our pandoras.

what do you mean, I thought we already could use SDHC cards in the Pandora?

Maybe he meant SDXC?

 

[alucart1984]

This would be great to have so we can use SDHC cards in our pandoras.

what do you mean, I thought we already could use SDHC cards in the Pandora?

Maybe he meant SDXC?

Hmmmm.....that would actually make sense. Smart one you are.

 

[Pickle]

This would be great to have so we can use SDHC cards in our pandoras.

what do you mean, I thought we already could use SDHC cards in the Pandora?

Ive been using a Sandisk 32 gb SDHC

 

[WizardStan]

Hmmmm.....that would actually make sense. Smart one you are.

Of course, even that doesn't completely make sense when you dig deeper, considering Pandora doesn't have a PCI-e slot, so it's a moot discussion right now, unless we're talking about for a Pandora2, but by the time we're ready for a Pandora2 it will probably contain SDXC slots anyway, so it's a moot discussion there as well.

 

[Vitel]

Mini-PCIe slots and cards are huge

Really? Look at this WWAN card, which I recently installed into my ThinkPad: http://vminko.org/gallery/X200/Ericsson%20F3507g
It's quite small.

there just aren't enough accessories available

False if you don't lock card IDs in BIOS.

this is very intel-specific sort of stuff

That's sad. I have such platform-dependent things :-(

 

[mali]

^ Well, on a Pandora scale it's quite large, a full size card is roughly 2x SDcard size.

I don't want to run down your idea, it would surely be nice to be able to swap wifi/wwan stuff, but OMAP can't communicate with PCI devices, except through their USB connection if available. You could cram much more other stuff in the space you'd have to sacrifice for a slot.

 

[wermy]

I think an internal USB (a la the Always Innovating Touchbook) would be more useful... I'm guessing it's pretty cramped in there as-is, though.

 

[Vitel]

I think an internal USB (a la the Always Innovating Touchbook) would be more useful... I'm guessing it's pretty cramped in there as-is, though.

I just realized why they used a USB interface instead of mini-PCIe.

 

[Farox]

Instead i was thinking of an internal SSD disk...maybe instead of 1 of the 2 SD slot...it's possible ?

 

[typs lik dis]

Why not just keep a high-capacity SD card in that slot?

I want two full-size PCIE 2.1 slots and crossfire/SLI capability in the Pandora 2. Also pref. x86 CPU and DDR3 RAM for upgradability and software compatibility. I think that with these features the Pandora would easily replace even my desktop gaming PC

 

[hch]

yeah, ssd is the name of the game. i bought a 128GB ssd for mini-PCIe on my eeePC.

but seriously: when pandor2 comes out, it will most certainly have usb 3.0 and SDXC support, which pretty much obsoletes PCIe.