Like the Intel (and every other Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 device for that matter), it’s also eligible for a free Windows 10 upgrade when that launches at the end of this month. You won’t be booting up Battlefield on this little thing, that’s for sure. It also runs Windows 8.1, though again only in the lightest sense possible. Just to be clear, that connectivity includes a microSD slot for storage expansion, Wi-Fi, a USB 2.0 port, and a Micro USB port. The Lenovo Ideacentre Stick 300 has identical specs to the Intel Compute Stick, including the same Intel Atom Z3735F CPU with 2GB of RAM, the same 32GB of storage, and the same connectivity. You can pick one up for around £130 on Amazon, which is similar to the Lenovo equivalent, but dearer than the rest.Īll in all, then, it’s not a particularly great purchase at present. The Intel Compute Stick is also one of the most expensive around. After all, it runs on an Intel Atom Z3735F CPU, which is more or less a tablet CPU (though it is 64-bit), and that’s backed up by a mere 2GB of RAM.ģ2GB of storage means that you won’t be storing heaps of media files on it, though common to the rest there is a microSD slot for expansion purposes. It’s intended for light usage, and once you start running multiple tasks it gets into trouble. It then provides the choice of a full(ish) Windows 8.1 experience, though there’s also a cheaper Ubuntu version in the pipeline.Īs with the rest, the Intel Compute Stick doesn’t really offer a full desktop experience in the truest sense. The idea is to then plug in a keyboard and mouse via USB 2.0 or Bluetooth (or most likely a combination of the two) for a full PC setup. As with the others on this list, the Intel Compute Stick plugs into any monitor or television with an HDMI connection. In fact, they’re built on more or less identical components.įirst up we have the Intel Compute Stick. The first three of our featured PC sticks are actually very similar indeed. You can swallow… Well, that’s the big question you need to answer for Traditional OS power and flexibility that comes with that is something The Google Chromebit HDMI will available now in the States for $85 (around £56), which comparesįavourably with most of the Windows crowd. It’s a good job, really, because there isn’t PC stick also has half the internal storage of the others, but again,Ĭhrome OS does most of its heavy lifting in the cloud, with no real Still, the aforementionedĭifference in OS should make the performance shortfall a moot point. Powered by a less capable Rockchip 3288 SoC. Than the OS, the Chromebit has the same USB 2.0 port, Bluetooth 4.0,Īnd Wi-Fi connectivity of the other sticks on this list. Windows sticks, because Chrome OS places much less demand on local Rather, it runs on Google’s own lightweight Chrome OS.Īctually has the potential to work far better than the aforementioned Google Chromebit HDMIĪnd now for something completely different: the Google Chromebit HDMI, made by Asus.Īs you might have guessed, this is no Windows PC stick. Here we run through five of the best-known PC sticks out there, along with what they can do and how much they cost. This isn’t a mere trend, then, nor is it a gimmick brought about by cheap and cheerful PC peripheral makers. At first glance they look like the kind of thing that, prior to the cloud, we’d all save our documents and files onto for easy transportation – except with an HDMI connector in place of USB.Ī number of major manufacturers have released such PC sticks over the past year or so. PC sticks whittle things down to a tiny dongle-like device. The kind that drops the bulky body, the bundled-in keyboard, and even the display. There’s a new breed of ultra-portable PC out there. They may well be the future of home computing, but what is a PC stick?
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