Slashdot Mirror
Intel 'Compute Stick' PC-Over-HDMI Dongle Launched, Tested
MojoKid writes: Intel has officially announced the availability of their Compute Stick HDMI dongle, and has lifted the embargo on early tests with the device. The Compute Stick is essentially a fully-functional, low-power, Atom-based system with memory, storage, and an OS, crammed into a dongle about 10cm long. There will initially be two compute sticks made available: one running Windows (model STCK1A32WFC) and another running Ubuntu (model STCK1A8LFC). The Windows 8.1 version of the Compute Stick is packing an Intel Atom Z3735F processor, with a single-channel of 2GB of DDR3L-1333 RAM and 32GB of internal storage, though out of the box only 19.2GB is usable. The Ubuntu version of the Compute Stick has as a similar CPU, but is packing only 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. All sticks have USB and MicroSD expansion capability. It doesn't burn through any benchmarks, but for multi-media playback, basic computing tasks, web browsing, HD video, or remote access, the Compute Stick has enough muscle to get the job done, and it's cheap, too: $99 — $149.
Why in FSM's name are the Ubuntu version hardware specs lower?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
LOL ... Intel inside, bitches.
The article indicates it's got a single USB 2.0, and bluetooth ... from there you can probably get things hooked up.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But it's just an hdmi dongle right? I assume you can't hook up a keyboard and mouse to it? I'm not sure how this is better than the roku stick for instance...
TFA says there's a USB port for attaching a keyboard/mouse.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Is bigger than yo stick.
There are a bunch of tablets on Amazon right now with Z3735G (which I assume is about the same if not better as the Z3735F) for less than $100.
They come (of course) with battery, probably charger, screen (of course) and so on. How is this stupid stick "cheap" for $100-$150?
Is it heavy enough to do damage to the HDMI port?
I'm not touching that.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Can run x86 binaries and uses Intel HD graphics, so no gfx driver issues. Roku or other ARM sticks can't run x86 binaries and you have to deal with their binary blob gfx drivers that generally don't play well with new kernels. ARM binaries are vary by core vintage and soft vs hard float. Then there is the variety of gpu cores: MALI, Vivante, PowerVR, Broadcom. By contrast Intel has open source options and Intel supplied binaries that get updated, especially because the desktop chips use the same gpu.
I tried upgrading my headless and slow single core ARM server to an IMX6 quad core. In theory it would have been great - in reality it never worked right and the gfx issues were a nightmare to sort out. I ended up with a J1900 board for not much more and it works like a dream.
37mm wide? Still too big to make a Computer In A Bottle.
"This comment will not be saved until you click the Submit button below.You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later."
Fuck you, /.
captcha: iceberg
I'm going look into testing one of these with a USB to DVI/HDMI 2nd display cable. If I can get acceptable performance out of $150 +$25 cable, I'm gonna convert about 10 people from my team to these things. They work remotely one occasion and this may be the perfect setup for them. These things plus two monitors are way better than the dinosaur, power-guzzling Pentium 4's these people have been clinging onto that cause all kinds of headache.
It's specced way too low to really be useful as a general computing device, and the form factor is 'weird' to say the least. It's too big to really be called a stick, and too small to be able to pack a decent cpu. There's plenty of space behind the monitor for a somewhat larger device in a better form factor. The stick is a play toy that you will become disappointed with very quickly (think the old 'netbook' concept Intel tried to push a few years ago... that's what the stick feels like).
Honestly, the 'compute stick' makes zero sense for a TV-mounted device. It is far better to just go with a chrome cast stick or an AppleTV for airplay and using a pad or cell in your hand to control it if you want to throw a display up on the TV. Otherwise you will be fumbling around with a horrible remote or you have to throw together a bluetooth keyboard (etc...) and it just won't be a fun or convenient experience.
My recommendation... don't bother with this gadget. Instead, spend a bit more money and get an Intel NUC or Gigabyte BRIX (both based on Broadwell). And get at least the i5 version, the lack of turbo in the i3 version is telling. e.g. i5-5200 based box or better. It will cost significantly more than the stick, but it packs a decent cpu, can take up to 16GB of ram (2x204pin SO-DIMM DDR3), and depending on the model might even have room for a 2.5" SSD or HDD in it. The broadwell i5-5200U makes for quite a reasonable compact workstation and boxes based on it will be almost universally dual-headed. Of course, whatever floats your boat but I would definitely say that the lowest-priced Intel NUC or Gigabyte BRIX that is haswell-based or broadwell-based is still going to be an order of magnitude better than the compute stick.
I have one of the Gigabyte GB-BXi5H-5200's myself ('H' version fits a normal 2.5" SSD or HDD) and packed 16GB of ram into it. It is dual-headed so I can drive two displays with it and the box is small enough to mount on the back of a monitor if you so desire (it even includes a mounting plate and most monitors, such as LG monitors, are ready to take it). And if mounting it on the back of a TV doesn't make sense, mount it on the back of a monitor instead or just let it float behind the monitor. It's a small box, after all, it won't get in the way of anything. 4-thread (2-core), 2.2 GHz turbo to 2.7 GHz. Dual-head. Decent.
-Matt
So not usable for the silent HTPC.
I will continue the Amazon Fire-TV stick, fast enough for SPMC (or XMBC) and a lot cheaper and probably more stable than the windows version too.
This is standard PC hardware and can run a multitude of standard PC operating systems with no modification. Linux. BSD. Windows, etc. They do now, and will continue to do in to the future.
Arm based android "sticks", in practice, can run the mystery build of android they shipped with and that's it. No upgrades. No documentation.
Intel has taken standard x86-64 hardware and pushed it down in to the power and thermal envelope where only ARM occupied before. Arm is nice, but it's flexibility has led to a lack of standardization. Fine for appliances, but less desirable for general purpose computers.
Stuff like this should not be a surprise. Intel, the lumbering giant it is, has had the fire lit under it's ass and it's decided it wants to actually compete in this space. With a process tech a full 2 generations ahead of it's nearest competitor they can smash any competitor they care to compete with. (Intel's internal culture is it's biggest enemy - Witness the pentium 4 and the Itanium disasters that almost let AMD take over the desktop and did take over the server world for a while)
I would love to see touch-screen TV's become more prevalent and cheaper. As soon as they do, I pair a touch-screen TV with one of these dongles, and I have a perfect display & presentation tool for business conference rooms and classrooms.
Actually, I thought the same thing initially:
So it's purely for supplying power.
But, it's got Bluetooth, so you can get keyboards and mice easily enough.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
but the USB 2.0 port should work great, no?
32GB HDD / 2 GB ram is low for windows and windows updates / swap / other software will take a big bite of that storage.
Oh, yes, I'm an idiot apparently.
Somehow the two USB references got mashed up in my head.
Yes, you are 100% correct ... there's a USB port you can use for devices, and one for power.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
http://gizmodo.com/intel-compu...
Pretty in dept review on why it sucks. For example want to use Bluetooth and Wifi? Don't plan on it as they're both handled by the same controller and the BT lags to shit when Wifi is enabled.
Its hardware specs are modest, but the Compute Stick does have one item that might be useful -- slap VMWare or a hypervisor on it, and use it for a Web browsing VM, using App-V so that the browser appears seamless.
The advantage of doing things this way a hardware level of isolation. Should the browser (or add-ons) get compromised, the malware has to get out of the VM, and even then... the compromise is limited to a rather small amount of hardware so if there is some attack that is able to fry the CPU or motherboard, replacing this is a lot less pain than a blade or 1U server.
Of course, it can't run much, but for just running a Web browser in an isolated environment with a 32 GB drive, it is good enough.
I know I will fall into the Slashdot cliche of "a Beowulf cluster"... but these could be useful for physical separation and containerization of tasks. Small applications like NTP which are security sensitive so end up on a dedicated box, a small RODC for a branch office, a syslog drop box (especially with the ability to use a USB drive for storage), VDI, and other things which physical separation (as opposed to containers or VMs) would be a good thing.
Since when did IQs drop so much, a PC gets referred to as a "compute"? Just because Intel's marketeers wish to CO-OPT a buzz word associated with the monstrous floating-point power of GPUs made by Nvidia and AMD does NOT mean anyone with a brain should use such terminology.
It is a PC-on-a-stick. Or an x86/x64 PC-on-a-stick. Or a Windows PC-on-a-stick.
Is is NOT, under any possible circumstances, a "compute" stick.
Stop repeating the DRIBBLE of Intel marketeers- we are better informed than that.
vmware's overhead is heavy on small devices, 180MB of RAM (and add about 60MB per cpu core above that) and about 10-15% cpu overhead.
that extra load is essentially zero on a normal system by today's standards, but at the very low end it hurts
I could see a company using this as a thin client for employees that remote into centralized VM desktops, especially if their needs are limited.
I know most people in my company do anything of consequence on remote servers/desktops.
Their local machine is mostly just web browsing and email.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
File system cache, maybe? Try free -t. Linux will use any free memory and release it when it is needed.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
I wonder if the hidden 12.8GB on the Windows stick is for the NSA to secretly store 'important' documents for them to recover later.
I do agree that it does add a non-trivial amount of load, but the purpose of it being there is for isolation (keep the malware away from the bare metal like the actual HDD firmware) and snapshot capabilities -- if the VM gets completely compromised, the entire thing can be rolled back fairly quickly. With 2GB of RAM [1], it can support some low-end OS partitions.
[1]: I've seen some low-end netbooks ship with Windows 8.1 and 2GB RAM, so even though it is a painfully low amount of RAM, I'm guessing someone can use a machine with that small amount of memory.
I am running a tech preview of 10 and it blows up to over 30 gig in a very short period of time without even downloading movies and the like. Unless 8.1 has disk space limits on install expect your customers to run out of room on the stick in a hurry. The Ubuntu users with less room most likely will not have these issues as they will be smart enough to use expansion cards for storage and Ubuntu does not blow up like a balloon with gobs of update rescue backups.
What I predict will happen is that typical windows users will diss this device because it uses a touch screen centric OS on what will be mostly televisions meaning that the single usb port will have to be occupied by mouse and keyboard for the device to work at all. Secondly it means carrying around these accessories.
All that being said I would buy one of the windows ones only if you can run full a blown linux on it. It could be a killer VLC media end point on my home network with Linux.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
It's not a complete review by any stretch.
All it says for Netflix is that it's 'flawless'. What about some details behind that? does it do HD properly? Does it output 5.1 surround sound?
Also, they didn't go through any really good playback reviews. Like..does it have the power to play blu-ray rips in mkv? Does it output 5.1 surround sound? Can it output DTS-HD/Tru HD?
To me (and probably others) This kind of information is VITAL.
Yes, but can you do a Beowulf Cluster with it?
..a Beowulf cluster of these!
It has an USB2.0 port. That would do for Keyboard and mouse. Maybe. The thing would need to be able to access Keyboard and Mouse via a hub. That is often a problem. I think this device is basically intended as a streaming endpoint with remote administration. At least for Linux, that is perfectly painless.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Dell sells a slim Celeron-based Inspiron desktop for $200 (it's sometimes more depending on supplies or whatnot). It's not very powerful, but it should at least be able to play video and emulators for older systems (as well as torrents and other such things). Best of all, it has an audio input jack, so stereo audio from other sources can be mixed in (I like to multitask during games and listen to podcasts or watch videos while playing).
Failing that, some $150 Chromebooks can browse the web and play some video. And some $150 windows laptops might be coming out alongside Windows 10. (Microsoft apparently isn't charging for weak/low-end devices anymore, and there are some cheap Windows tablets now, so this seems possible. There's already at least one $200 Windows laptop.)
Meego Stick does the same with similar hardware now...
The really sucky thing about these new tablets and sticks is they don't support legacy bios and the CPU itself is locked at limited memory. With Windows 10, we are going to see most systems LOCKED TO Windows.(Secure boot, END of open PC).
If you could run windows XP on them, they would use 1/6th the memory and do far more.. screw metro.
I'm running a $66.00 TW700 Tablet right now with hdmi(40" 1080p), full size usb, micro usb(charging), speakers, 1280x800 screen, 4hr battery life.... ....... Windows 8.1 is the worst OS I've ever used,L No good linux install available for it (yet?).
Wi-fi is not reliable enough, doubly so in crowded airspace around apartment blocks and the like. This would be much more attractive if it let me go RJ45 -> Stick -> TV.
I guess if you want Ubuntu (or some other distro) on the beefier version of the stick, you can buy the windows one and replace it yourself. Assuming Windows on there is the free 'linux killer' version, you're not losing anything - except your time and effort. Maybe if Intel sees a market for beefier linux sticks it'll start selling them...
Then again, that assumes it's possible to replace the OS on these things. Anybody know?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
get a bluetooth usb hub?
no thanks, don't need a whiny little fan
I tried upgrading my laptop, in theory it would have been great - in reality it's a pain in the ass because although the distribution I used was i586, it required PAE support (which is present in the CPU buy the ID bits don't say so) so I had to use a custom kernel, so now I can't upgrade it through the package manager.
with that huge amount of memory
FTFY
Yea, and lemme tell you, with most shit on the backside of a TV, and all that nice shielding in the casing, it's a fucker to get a wireless signal to reach and be received.
Tried one. Already sent it back. If I need an extender cable to make a plug and pray device work, nope, see you, adios.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"It has an USB2.0 port. That would do for Keyboard and mouse. Maybe."
If 480Mbit is only good for keyboard and mouse, I don't even want to touch any software or hardware you design, EVER.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
4 cores, 2GB RAM, hardware video codec... and about half the price. Ok, it's not in a case and doesn't plug straight into the TV, but with its size it's easy enough to hide. At least I have control over the internal storage and can choose to use wired or wireless networking with it.
--- To save space, would readers please insert their own witty comment -here-
Windows 8.1 runs happily in just 1GB of RAM, better than XP and much better than Vista/7.
If that is the case, then using tiny VMs might just be a useful tool, as it might come in handy for honeypot research, or just for browsing the Web securely. Since a common (if not the most common) cause of compromise is the Web browser, might as well not just have logical separation (sandbox, VMs), but physical separation, so damage is limited. With multiple devices, it becomes a matter of hacking via remote if malware on one device obtained by general web browsing wanted to attack the compute stick holding the browser instance with the banking data.