In the past, a new car computer came around every couple of years. But within the last seven days we've seen two that will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week.
Last Monday we reported on a new line of car PCs from Dashboard Devices that will be unveiled at CES, and now we've come across a company called Swiitek that's jumping into the fray with an in-dash computer designed to replace the factory head unit in specific cars -- despite a lack of interest even among early-adopter tech geeks.
Car PCs have been available for over a decade, and even though this millennium's constantly connected lifestyle has slowly crept into the car via Bluetooth and systems like Ford's Sync that allow hands-free phoning and texting while behind the wheel, thankfully few drivers feel so compelled to edit a Word doc or create an Excel spreadsheet while stuck in traffic that they're willing to pay upwards of $1,000 for an in-dash computer.
But Swiitek is introducing six car PCs: two universal-fit double-DIN models and four specifically designed to fit the dashboards of late-model Toyota Camrys and Corollas and Honda Civics and CR-Vs.
Each runs Windows CE 5.0 or XP and includes a 1.2 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAMM and a 160 GB hard drive. The Swiitek car PCs all have a touch-screen LCD monitor, offer Internet access via a cellular connection or Wi-Fi and have built-in Bluetooth for hands-free calling and wireless music streaming, GPS navigation, a CD/DVD drive and AM/FM tuner and USB and SD card ports. They also come loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile and are controlled via a USB or wireless mouse.
Swiitek expects MSRPs to be under $1,000. We expect more car PCs to come out of the woodwork before CES is over -- and that the driving public won't be lining up to buy them anytime soon.
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