A month back, I had a tiny box on my table. It was smaller than my iPhone box and it read PC. So I was curious and opened it to find a tiny device which is a bit bigger than a Pen Drive and weighing about 46 grams. That was the whole PC, and I was holding in my hand. The complete package!
It comes with an Intel Atom Bay Trail 1.33GHz Quad core processor, 2GB RAM and 16 or 32 GB storage depending on the version you buy. It has no shortage of ports too. It comes with HDMI for display connectivity, Micro SD slot which is expandable upto 128GB, one full USB 2.0 Port, One Micro USB port to which you can connect an OTG cable and another micro USB port for power supply. For wireless connectivity, it has Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11.
To get started, I connected the device directly into the HDMI port of my monitor and the power cable. It took a white to boot, but it was only for the first time. After the first boot, I was pleasantly surprised because this device comes with Window 10 Pre-Installed! So I could start using it instantly. I could get started with most of the tasks I do every day right out of the box without any hiccups.
The biggest appeal for this device is in two places: Home Entertainment and Offices.
Home Entertainment:
This device is outstanding when it comes to home entertainment. It beats every Smart TV or streaming box because of the fact that it is an actual computer always connected to your TV! Since the device connects directly to Wifi, streaming and downloading content is very easy. Also, since it comes with an USB port we had our External Hard Drive connected. For controlling the PC, there are loads of apps on all mobile platforms which does just that! It was simple and got the job done without many complications.
Offices:
The device is capable of running simple apps like the Microsoft Office Suite and most of the offices have the need for just that. So, I lent my review unit to a couple of small offices. Employees from both the organisations used Microsoft Word and Excel extensively. They were really impressed with this device. Not for once did they feel the device underperformed or did they want more. It is perfect for most of the offices. The whole set up would cost less that an average PC. But the biggest advantage of this device is that it takes up no space and there is very little maintenance to do. Also, it comes Pre-Installed with F-Secure Antivirus for 1 year.
One small inconvenience we found with the device is that with all it’s ports, it does not come with 3.5mm audio output. So if you’re using it as a PC, you should connect bluetooth headphones or speakers. Although, there shouldn’t be any issue if you are using it as a home entertainment device connected to your TV because the HDMI streams both the image and audio. The other thing is that the only USB port on the device is 2.0 instead of 3.0 which every device ships with these days.
Verdict:
The 16GB Version costs Rs. 10,000 and the 32GB Version costs Rs. 11,000. I would recommend getting the 32GB version even though both models come with an expandable Micro SD slot. Add this with a decent monitor and a wireless Keyboard Mouse, the whole setup should cost you less than Rs. 18,000 requiring no maintenance. That’s a steal for most of the enterprise customers.
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