HTPC Inside A Cellular Phone

htpc_carphone

Reader [Jani] always wanted to throw a PC into an old school cell phone. He based this around the extremely small Commell LS-371 motherboard which measures just 146×101 mm (~5.9×4 in). He found room behind an existing access door for a DVI connector and audio in/out.  He even incorporated an OLED screen, secondary sound card for “speakerphone”, and a WiFi connector into the handset. Things start to get interesting when he decided the SSD was too large and needed to be removed from its case. The one thing that seems to be missing here is an IR receiver for a remote but since he plans on running XBMC, he may already be setup to use another option such as an iPhone to act as a remote interface.

13 thoughts on “HTPC Inside A Cellular Phone

  1. Interesting… As far as cases go this is one of the ugliest i’ve seen. I would have let it slide if the headset was hacked to support skype. I think an old toaster would have been a sexier case than this.

  2. I’ve a old school Office Phone, in bakalite, and a Psion II organiser, I’ve toyed with the idea of converting them to modern equiveilents or putting newer IT equipment in them but have not done so for this very reason.

    Sometimes it’s just better to leave them be!

    Nice talking point though!

  3. Antique? Fine old equipment? Rare device? Give me the same mushrooms! The landfills and recycling centers are full of old electronics, what on earth do you reckon makes this particular unit so damn fine? :D

    Look it this way: atleast it now stays in use, at show and isn’t going to get tossed away.

    Sheesh.

  4. It’s original, it repurposes old hardware, and if something so old wasn’t an object of visual interest it would be downright stealthy.

    Ugly is subjective, and it’s okay as long as the device works really well.

  5. very interesting project, only thing is, why not put the wifi in the base, and connect it to the antenna connector? This would allow a decent antenna to be attached where the unit is already designed to have an antenna. (due to physical limitations, usb wifi adapters without an antenna connector have junk antennas because there isn’t sufficient space for a decent one)

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