@Evilcat:
While it's true that many people won't need all the features a PC can provide, on the other hand there are lots who will, particular those who travel as part of their job. People spend so much time in their cars these days, and there are a lot of things that most people do every day that you can do much better on a PC than any other device - browsing the internet, writing emails, creating documents and spreadsheets, using remote desktop, etc. Yes, you can do some of those things on PDAs, but it's not nearly as easy to use. Emails, for example - Ok for a one-liner, but typing on a PDA gets quite tiring after a while. And the formatting of documents often gets muddled up when you use the mobile version of word. If you're away from the office, having facilities like this available in the car is surely going to be a life saver for many businesses.
Regarding mounting the screen, have a look at www.in-carpc.co.uk/vision. There's loads of options there, including screens that fit in both single and double din slots, which most modern cars have (even if they don't appear to at first glance), so the screen will be exactly where the manufacturer intended the radio to be, which is normally going to be positioned as close to eye level as possible. For cars that don't have din slots it says you can sometimes use the existing display.
I disagree that a bigger screen is less safe. Have a look at the sat-nav screenshot at www.in-carpc.co.uk/satnav. There's room on there for both a nice clear map (which on its own is probably about the same size as a portable device) and a list of turns so you know which lane to be in. I think the small screen size of portable devices severely limits them - there's a lot of information crammed into a very small space. Obviously if you had a 32" plasma tv in there it might get in the way a bit, but most of the car pc displays are about 7", which I think is a very nice size, and is similar to what manufacturers put in their cars anyway.
You also hear stories of having to wait quite a long time (up to 30 seconds) for portable devices to calculate a route. I should think navigation software running on a proper PC would be able to make mincemeat of that.
Regarding Sync, as you say yourself, it can't even do sat-nav, let alone PC related tasks, so it's irrelevant at the moment. And I think you're being a bit unfair to call it 'bolted on' - seems like quite a neat job to me, especially the head rest displays and the one that comes out of the dashboard.
I suppose if you only grudgingly accept that sat-nav is useful (which I find absolutely essential) then you're bound to be sceptical of things that go further as technology moves on.
While it's true that many people won't need all the features a PC can provide, on the other hand there are lots who will, particular those who travel as part of their job. People spend so much time in their cars these days, and there are a lot of things that most people do every day that you can do much better on a PC than any other device - browsing the internet, writing emails, creating documents and spreadsheets, using remote desktop, etc. Yes, you can do some of those things on PDAs, but it's not nearly as easy to use. Emails, for example - Ok for a one-liner, but typing on a PDA gets quite tiring after a while. And the formatting of documents often gets muddled up when you use the mobile version of word. If you're away from the office, having facilities like this available in the car is surely going to be a life saver for many businesses.
Regarding mounting the screen, have a look at www.in-carpc.co.uk/vision. There's loads of options there, including screens that fit in both single and double din slots, which most modern cars have (even if they don't appear to at first glance), so the screen will be exactly where the manufacturer intended the radio to be, which is normally going to be positioned as close to eye level as possible. For cars that don't have din slots it says you can sometimes use the existing display.
I disagree that a bigger screen is less safe. Have a look at the sat-nav screenshot at www.in-carpc.co.uk/satnav. There's room on there for both a nice clear map (which on its own is probably about the same size as a portable device) and a list of turns so you know which lane to be in. I think the small screen size of portable devices severely limits them - there's a lot of information crammed into a very small space. Obviously if you had a 32" plasma tv in there it might get in the way a bit, but most of the car pc displays are about 7", which I think is a very nice size, and is similar to what manufacturers put in their cars anyway.
You also hear stories of having to wait quite a long time (up to 30 seconds) for portable devices to calculate a route. I should think navigation software running on a proper PC would be able to make mincemeat of that.
Regarding Sync, as you say yourself, it can't even do sat-nav, let alone PC related tasks, so it's irrelevant at the moment. And I think you're being a bit unfair to call it 'bolted on' - seems like quite a neat job to me, especially the head rest displays and the one that comes out of the dashboard.
I suppose if you only grudgingly accept that sat-nav is useful (which I find absolutely essential) then you're bound to be sceptical of things that go further as technology moves on.
