Two recent announcements suggest that “stick” PCs may be gaining momentum:

  • A Google blog mentioned what will be called the Chromebit, an ASUS-built USB drive-style device “smaller than a candy bar” that acts as a full computer when it is plugged into a display. The device will be powered by a Rockchip quad-core processor with dual-band WiFi 802.11ac & BT4.0 support and will sell for less than $100.
  • News reports noted that the Ultra-Slim Compute Stick Intel announced at CES 2015 is available for preorder. The Compute Stick is Android-based but comes pre-loaded with either Windows 8.1 ($150) or Ubuntu Linux 14.04 ($110). Enabling Windows requires an activation fee.

Like the Chromebit, the Compute Stick is designed to work with a display, keyboard and mouse but it is also similar to Dell’s Wyse Cloud Connect (launched in January 2014). Both connect to displays via HDMI/MHL ports. Both contain a CPU, RAM and Flash storage capable of supporting essential computing/web tasks, as well as a Micro SD slot for adding storage capacity and a USB input. Both offer 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless. [Disclosure: Pund-IT has consulting relationships with both Dell and Intel.

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