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Plug-in And Boot Computer

Introducing The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

The much anticipated new version of the popular $35 mini-pc - The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is here. The board made appearance at the FCC website revealing all details a few days ago and is now officially released by the foundation for ordering. Major new features include a new 64-bit ARM 8 1.2GHz Quad-core Broadcom BCM2837 CPU with on-board WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy. Everything else remains the same, the maximum power draw has been upgraded to 2.5A@5V from 1.8A@5V to allow more power hungry USB devices without a need for a powered USB hub.

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Lenovo Ideacentre 300 : Another PC On A Stick

Be it the GULEEK i8 or Intel Compute Stick, mini-pc's are in-vague these days. Lenovo has also jumped onto the bandwagon and released it's very own Computer-On-A-Stick, the Lenovo Ideacentre 300.

Marketed with the tagline "Affordable Personal Computing in the Palm of Your Hand", the pocket-sized desktop comes with the standard spec-sheet of it's competition which is - a Intel Atom Z3735F CPU, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage, USB port, microSD card, WiFi and Bluetooth 4. The Windows 8.1 powered HDMI stick computer is scheduled to hit stores in July, 2015 for a price-tag of $129. It is to be noted this costs $20 less then Intel Compute Stick, also I would still recommend GULEEK i8 over these as it costs just $103 for the same specs includes free world-wide shipping, can be ordered right-now and comes with has added benefit of an built-in 3000mAh battery.

Picture Of Lenovo Ideacentre 300

[SuperDeal] Ainol Windows 8.1 Mini PC With Intel Z3735D Quad-Core CPU, 2GB RAM, 32GB Storage, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and 7000mAh Built-in Battery For $109

So, you’re looking for a new PC? It can be a daunting task shopping for a new one as the market is saturated with literally thousands of models, and, if you’re not an IT expert, you may not even know where to begin.

The good news is that purchasing a new computer is now so much easier and you can do it online and from the comfort of your own home (no more battling the crowds at the mall and sullen shop assistants). If you enjoy convenience (don’t we all?) or if you are “technically-challenged”, many PCs now come with pre-installed Windows software, such as the powerful new Ainol Mini PC powered which comes pre-installed with a legitimate licensed copy of Windows 8.1 . This means that you will not need to struggle through the long and arduous installation process and those horrible CDs that always used to come with new computers. Your computer is ready to use as soon as you receive it – what a joy!

Ainol MiniPC

The Ainol Windows Mini PC is a tiny, slim computer and is so compact that it can slide into your back pocket. It weighs only 335g which is the equivalent to a bottle of Coke! Don’t be fooled, though, because although this little PC is small, dynamite comes in small packages and this PC has an amazing Intel Z3735D 1.8Ghz 64 bit quad-core CPU, Integrated Intel HD Graphics GPU, 2GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC ROM, WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, supports TF card upto 128GB, 3-axis G-sensor, high sensitivity, supports HDMI and has 2 x USB 2.0;1 x Micro SD card slot;1 x 3.5mm Earphone jack interfaces. It also has a built-in 7000m Ah battery and can work for more than 10 hours and on standby for a whopping 40 hours! It will act as a power bank for your phone and will fully charge 2 iPhone 6s. This powerful little PC comes pre-installed with Windows 8.1 (Bing authorized edition) so you will be ready to work within minutes! It also has other amazing features such as live Windows tiles, metro UI and has access to the Windows Store. What’s even more unbelievable is that the boot-up time is only 10 seconds !

CHIP - The $9 Computer

CHIP Computer Logo$35 Raspberry Pi has the crown of being world's smallest and cheapest computer, but this seems not to be the case anymore. C.H.I.P. - a brand new entry to the mini-computing scene has already been successfully crowd-funded at kickstarter, the "100% open-source" product features attractive functionality and power for a price-tag of $9 which includes a 1Ghz A13 Allwinner CPU, 512MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB NAND storage, USB, Micro USB, Video/Audio/MIC Composite, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wifi 802.11B/G/N.

The tiny C.H.I.P. SOC is designed to run Debian Linux including modern desktop GUI apps like LibreOffice, VLC, or the Firefox or Chrome web browsers. Best of all, CHIP runs mainline Linux, which means it’s easier than ever to keep teaching it new tricks without inheriting a pile of kernel patches. Do watch the introduction video shared by MAKE magazine of this exciting new development for maker's community.

Intel® Compute Stick - Quad Core Atom CPU With Windows 8.1

HDMI Android and Linux TV sticks are nothing new, but now we have Intel Quad Core powered Windows mini-pcs's as GULEEK i8 which is already on sale and we blogged about it earlier. Intel has also announced their own version of the Mini-PC Stick at CES 2015 as shared below.

The Intel Compute Stick is a new generation device which is a full-featured plug-n-play Desktop computer with a quad-core Intel® Atom™ processor, built-in wireless connectivity, on-board storage, and a micro SD card slot for additional storage. The four inches long, ultra-small, power-efficient device will come pre-installed in two flavors one with Windows 8.1 priced at $150 and other one with Linux priced at $89.

The Intel Compute Stick is planned to be released in March, 2015 but as of now the GULEEK i8 seems a better deal considering the fact that it is powered by same Intel branded CPU, is cheaper (for Windows version), has 3000mAh built-in battery, more connectors, comes with a remote control app for mobile phone and is available to order right now for just $103.

Intel Compute Stick

GULEEK i8 : $104 Intel Quad-Core Mini-PC With Windows 8.1 And Built-in Battery

There are tons of TV sticks and mini-pc's with Android and Linux support, but a new breed of Intel Quad-core HDMI mini-pc's have now started to appear supporting a fully-functional Microsoft Windows 8.1 OS.

GULEEK i8 comes powered with an 1.3 GHz Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core processor, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, 2 full-sized USB ports, a micro USB port (for charging), a micro HDMI port, a headset jack, microphone, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 3000mAh battery (allowing usage as a portable media player without need of a power adapter), all this in a ultra-slim, light-weight and noise-free fanless design. The Intel powered quad-core CPU coupled with Microsoft Windows 8.1 OS makes this one of the best setup for a home entertainment system supporting hardware video decoding (Intel HD Graphic(Gen7)) with full codec support unlike it's Android and Linux counterparts, just plug this on any screen via HDMI and you have a fully-functional desktop computer with Windows 8.1 OS.

You can also use this as an headless system, the mini-pc comes with an Android app supporting remote login and interaction with the GULEEK i8 without requiring a keyboard and mouse.

Configuring Network Folder Sharing On Radxa Rock

Radxa Rock - the cheap and powerful quad-core mini-computer has already receiving great success with majority of stock vanishing across all major online distributors. Luckily, I had received my Radxa Rock a while back and has now successfully taken over the job of my Wireless Network Attached Storage (NAS) from Raspberry Pi.

The process of setting up NAS on Radxa Rock is much more easier then Raspberry Pi as the external disk is automatically detected and mounted on every boot (Thanks to Ubuntu Desktop based Linaro image), but when using the folder sharing via Samba Share we need to add an extra line to smb.conf to make the data accessible over network.

Network Folder Sharing Over Samba

Radxa Rock - The $99 Quad Core, 2 GB RAM Mini Computer With Android And Linux Support

Raspberry Pi - the hacker friendly, cheap mini-computer started a whole new niche of users tinkering with these easily accessible hardware and open-source software to create awesome projects. There are now a plethora of such ARM development boards from single-core, dual-core to quad-code varieties having all sorts of ARM CPU options like Rockchip, i.MX Freescale, Samsung Exynos etc. with various RAM, connectivity and falsh storage options.

Radxa Rock is the newest entry into this arena and seems to pack a solid punch of hardware and software power, powered by Quad core ARM Cortex-A9 processor the board manages to clock as high as 1.6Ghz and as low as 324Mhz, balancing between performance and power saving. The single-board computer uses RK3188 as the quad-core CPU and comes with 2GB DDR3 @ 800Mhz, 8GB Nand Flash, Micro-SD SDXC up to 128GB, Mali400-mp4@533Mhz GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 support, video output via HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p@60hz, integrated Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi with external antenna, LAN, RTC, IR, USB OTG, S/PDIF, headphone jack, built-in microphone and 80 pins including GPIO, I2C, SPI, Line in, USB 2.0, PWM, ADC, LCD, etc. allowing users to easily connect rock with breadboard or other sensor boards.

Radxa Rock

Xi3 - The New Breed Of Powerful, Tinker Friendly and Portable Modular Computers

We have seen success and demand for Mini computers like Cotton Candy, Raspberry Pi, Intel Next Unit Of Computing (NUC), O-DROID X and VIA APC 8750. But here is something which takes the prize for being the only viable looking portable solution to today's high-power desktop computing needs.

Xi3 modular computers are not only small but very rugged, the outer aluminum chassis not only acts as a good heat dispenser but also as an sturdy protector. The modular motherboard lets user buy an future-proof PC as they can simply swap out components easily as new technology gets available saving cost later on PC upgrades. Xi3 systems are also energy efficient and have models using just 40W of power.

Xi3 modular computers

Don't miss the video introduction to this promising new era of desktop computing posted below.

ODROID-X - Powerful Android development board with hardware specs similar to Samsung Galaxy S3 for $129

Portable computing units are in-vogue and the latest to join the bunch is ODROID-X, a powerful computing unit with PC like performance powered by an ARM Cortex-A9 Quad Core and 1 GB 800 Mhz DDR RAM.

ODROID-X is aimed mainly at android developers and comes with an impressive hardware spec-sheet similar to "Samsung Galaxy SIII", i.e. a 1.4 Ghz quad-core Samsung Exynos 4412 processor, 1GB RAM, Mali-400 GPU, on-board Android 4.0.4 ICS (also supports Ubuntu 12.04), 6 USB 2.0 ports, micro USB port, micro HDMI port with full-hd 1080p video output, standard 3.5mm headphone and microphone jack, 50pin IO expansion port, 100 Mbps Ethernet port and an SD card slot for storage. The best part the board is available (from end of this month) for $129 with free worldwide shipping.

ODROID
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