Taiwanese hardware manufacturer VIA has announced a new product called the Android PC System (APC), a seven-inch ARM board that ships with a custom version of the Android mobile operating system. The device will be available in July for $49.

The APC includes a VIA ARM11 SoC, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage, VGA and HDMI video outputs, speaker and microphone jacks, a microSD slot, an ethernet port, and four USB ports. It also reportedly supports hardware-accelerated video decoding. According to VIA, the board consumes only 4 watts when idle and 13.5 watts under maximum load.

The Raspberry Pi foundation’s $35 computer, which launched earlier this year, attracted considerable interest from Linux hobbyists and embedded computing enthusiasts. The foundation partnered with two manufacturers, but has struggled to meet demand for the product. VIA could help fill the unmet demand for a low-cost ARM system that is suitable for the hobbyist market.

VIA's computer will ship as a bare board without a case. The board, which measures 7 inches by 3.5 inches, is described by VIA as conforming with the new “Neo-ITX” form factor. The included software environment is based on Android 2.3, but has been tailored to work better with keyboard and mouse input devices. The APC has more USB ports and twice as much RAM as the $35 Raspberry Pi. By way of comparison, the tiny $74 Android computer that surfaced last week has a higher-end Cortex-A8 CPU, a WiFi antenna, and Android 4.0.

The market for low-cost Linux systems is becoming increasingly diverse, with offerings at several different price points and form factors. This is a win for enthusiasts who have more choices to pick from for their hobby projects.