The Intel Compute Stick is here! :) How we have waited for this......
It brings great promise, affordable to buy, but perhaps even more importantly, more affordable to service and replace. Instead of doing an advanced installation with the player pc in another room, lots of cabling by an electrician etc, you can simply hide it behind the screen! This could easily save you far more than the savings in for the device itself.
It does basic signage very well, full HD video is no problem, neither in landscape or portrait. It's has the (now pretty standard Atom Z3735F 4 core, 1,33 GHZ burstable to 1.83GHz CPU. Comes with Windows 8.1 Standard, no issues there.
It only has one USB 2.0 slot though, limiting connectiity. However it also has a funny Remote app for managing the device through your mobile - not sure if this is great feature or a great security risk.
We'll continue to test it more, but so far it looks very promising!
Pros:
- Small!
- Affordable to buy and service!
- Full Windows with Bing license - for free!
- Autostarts on powerloss by default - no messing with bios to enable it
- Draws power from your screen (but be careful - not all screens provide power during rebooting the stick)
Cons:
- Doesn't to Multizone very well
- Not that much space on the drive (but you can add a MicroSD)
- Small fan could be prone to dust exposure?
- Only one USB port - some hassle to connect both a mouse and keyboard
Putting the Compute Sticks through our burn-in tests :)
It brings great promise, affordable to buy, but perhaps even more importantly, more affordable to service and replace. Instead of doing an advanced installation with the player pc in another room, lots of cabling by an electrician etc, you can simply hide it behind the screen! This could easily save you far more than the savings in for the device itself.
It does basic signage very well, full HD video is no problem, neither in landscape or portrait. It's has the (now pretty standard Atom Z3735F 4 core, 1,33 GHZ burstable to 1.83GHz CPU. Comes with Windows 8.1 Standard, no issues there.
It only has one USB 2.0 slot though, limiting connectiity. However it also has a funny Remote app for managing the device through your mobile - not sure if this is great feature or a great security risk.
We'll continue to test it more, but so far it looks very promising!
Pros:
- Small!
- Affordable to buy and service!
- Full Windows with Bing license - for free!
- Autostarts on powerloss by default - no messing with bios to enable it
- Draws power from your screen (but be careful - not all screens provide power during rebooting the stick)
Cons:
- Doesn't to Multizone very well
- Not that much space on the drive (but you can add a MicroSD)
- Small fan could be prone to dust exposure?
- Only one USB port - some hassle to connect both a mouse and keyboard
Putting the Compute Sticks through our burn-in tests :)
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