Back in 2009 Igel announced their Universal Desktop range of second generation thin clients...
Reading, UK - January 28, 2009 - IGEL Technology, the world's third largest thin client vendor (Q1-Q3 2008 revenue, IDC), today introduced its new Universal Desktop series that promises to redefine the device that organizations use to access their server-based applications and infrastructure.....
The Universal Desktop range is powered by five sleek and modern hardware designs:
- The UD2 series is a small, affordable, energy efficient hardware platform that can be VESA mounted on the back of a monitor. The DVI-I port supports dual monitors with an optional Y cable and it can connect to common peripherals with its four USB ports. The UD2 series only supports the Entry and Standard Digital Service Packs.
- The UD3 series is an affordable, compact, versatile midrange hardware platform that can power all digital service levels, from the Entry to the Advanced Digital Service Packs. Optionally, an integrated smartcard reader and a Connectivity Foot for Wi-Fi and/or a serial port can be added.
- The UD5 series is a powerful and expandable hardware platform. Its high speed processor and graphics can support demanding applications or many applications running simultaneously. It also supports the broadest set of connectivity to peripherals. Optionally, an integrated smartcard reader and a Connectivity Foot for Wi-Fi and/or a parallel port can be added.
- The UD7 series is based on the powerful UD5 hardware platform. It is custom designed for the most demanding quad-screen graphics environments. Using the same chassis as the UD5 it offers an optional smartcard reader, optional Connectivity Foot and a broad range of IO ports. This series is only available with the Advanced Digital Service Pack.
- The UD9 series is an integrated 19" LCD platform with a broad range of I/O ports. Ideal for customers with space-constrained environments, this series is only available with the Advanced Digital Service Pack.
Within in each series there has been an Entry/Standard/Advanced firmware package - of little interest to me as this website is all about reusing the underlying hardware. Whether the original came with Linux, Windows XP Embedded or Windows CE only influences the amount of flash and RAM that might be fitted to the hardware.
Since its launch in 2009 the Universal Desktop range has gone through a number of iterations (aka generations) where the hardware has been upgraded but is still referred to as the UD2/UD3/UD4/UD5 etc. In these preliminary pages I have attempted to identify the underlying hardware for each range.
2015 brochure excerpt
2017 brochure excerpt
Frustratingly Igel's general data sheets, whilst listing the hardware specification, don't give the explicit hardware model number. To compound matters we are lucky if we can find any date of printing of the brochures although buried in the small print there is usually a copyright symbol and a date. For example a quick Google for a UD5 datasheet will almost certainly pull up one which says its based on an Intel Celeron J1800 2.41 - 2.58 GHz Dual-Core processor and uses Intel Bay Trail SoC chipset. Buried in the small print is a copyright date of 01/15. So that datasheet is actually about the H820C, not the H710C or the H700C which were its predecessors and used VIA CPUs.
Luckily they also publish data sheets titled
"Technical Specification and Connector Description of IGEL UDX....."
which does help in finding some sort of cross reference between actual hardware part numbers and the UD ranges.
The various UDx tabs above are my interpretation of the facts. If I'm wrong please put me right.