Since when is this full-size tower more attractive than this little HDMI stick?
They're both computers and the impossible standard set by the media.
All computers are beautiful and you're going to hurt the little computer
stick's feelings. It's a computer, too.
And if you don't think so, you can keep your scummy hands off of it.
Non-aggressively hit the like button down below if you'd like us to check out
a video on a portable IPS monitor in the future.
FreshBooks is the super simple invoicing solution that lets you get organized,
save time, and get paid faster. Click now to learn more. The definition of the
Intel Compute Stick is actually rather simple. It's an Intelbased computer on a
stick. Naturally, due to its size, it's not all that powerful, but there are
also two versions of it. one of which was available now and the other of which
is coming later. Depending on which model you get, the stick will have some
pretty major changes. The first stick's unique items are Windows 8.1 with
Bing. What they share is an Intel Atom
Z375F processor, Intel HD graphics, an
integrated single stream 802.11 BGN
wireless connection, Bluetooth 4.0, a micro SD card slot, and one USB 2.0
jack. and the obviously required since it's an HDMI stick, HDMI 1.4A connector.
It's considerably bigger than your average USB stick. It's more like four
of them kind of stacked in a little square at 103.4 mm by 37.6 mm x 12.5 mm.
And it's powered through its micro USB jack, which can be plugged into
essentially whatever can push 5 volts and 2 amps over USB. So, a nice battery
bank or what Intel expects you to use, the included wall wart with travel
adapters. Why does it come natively with travel adapters? Well, that leads us
into usability. Intel wants you to be able to take and use this thing
virtually anywhere that you can use a computer. Bring it with you to on your
travels and have a power adapter for whatever plug you really need to use.
bring it with you so that you can have a presentation and you don't have to have
the classic fight of trying to figure out their crazy freaking computer. Uh,
plug it into the TV in your hotel room and then you don't have to deal with
whatever is on their TV and you can watch or listen or do whatever the heck
you want. Intel is a very businessy company and this is a very businessy
product, but that doesn't mean that it has to be. I mean, sure, this thing is a
very super easy solution for digital signage or a really affordable way to
get workers hooked up to computers when they just need to do something simple
like using the Microsoft Office suite and maybe some other simpleish programs.
But for the home user that is looking for something maybe more advanced than
the experience that a chcast or Roku stick, this could do the trick. No, it
won't have the inherent ease of use that casting has, but you can do more things
with it. So, if that works for you, then great. In terms of gaming, I wouldn't
expect much. The Wi-Fi connectivity is a little bit lacking with a single stream.
If you're going to be game streaming, and the performance is a little lacking
for playing games directly off the device. So, unless you stick to very
basic games in both cases, you're not going to have that great of a time.
There's loads of uses for this thing. emergency computer. You could keep it in
your car or in your backpack. And if your laptop and phone and whatever else
dies, you could plug this into any screen pretty much anywhere. TV screen
in a hotel room, monitor, in a library.
I don't know if that's legal. Don't hold me to that one. You can plug it into
pretty much anything and have your own computer wherever you really need to go
that can connect to Wi-Fi networks and do a whole bunch of other really cool
stuff. or it can be a travel thing. So, it's not a like fallback. It could be,
like I said, going into hotel rooms, plugging into TVs, using it for
presentations. It could be used for school. You can go into libraries and
plug it into that monitor there. So, you can use the libraries resources, use
their printers, do all that kind of stuff, but then you don't have to use a
school computer. You can actually use your own. It's an interesting device in
an interesting spot. With value competitors like the Chcast and
performance competitors like the NVIDIA Shield, it definitely has its work cut
out for it and its value will be maybe a little bit hard to see because there is
those really strong competitors, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its place in the market. A whole Windows 8.1
machine on a stick is super impressive. What do you guys think? Thanks for
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So, click this little button in the top right hand corner to see a video where
Lionus unboxes the first thing he's ever unboxed.