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  • zepi - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    How about testing the H265 as well? I'm sure people will stumble upon it more and more as everyone wants to save in bandwidth costs.
  • ddriver - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Come on now, would it kill you to put 4 gigs of ram instead? That would significantly improve the usability.
  • utroz - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Probably has something to do with the fact that it has a 32bit version of windows so they skimped on the ram. Or they used 32bit windows because they skimped on the ram.. Either way it was a bad call. 64bit windows and 4GB of Ram or more are a must..
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    I think that's intentional in order to push people up into the Core m3 and m5 Compute Sticks.
  • Blibbax - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    Iirc it's because (if you're an OEM) you can get a cheaper Windows license for a low-end system like this.
  • mkozakewich - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link

    2 GB is usable, at least. Windows takes up about 1 GB after boot, so the devices of 2014-2015 were horrible after the eMMC ran out of spare blocks.
  • andychow - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    The cpu only supports max 2 gigs of ram. So 4 gigs is impossible.
  • Samus - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    It's also windows licensing issue. Until basically get windows 10 for free on these devices if they ship with <32 GB NAND and 2 GB RAM.
  • Teknobug - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link

    The X5 Z8300 is a 64bit processor, just like Samus said, devices with 32GB storage and 2GB or less memory gets free Windows license.
  • ddriver - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link

    So they crippled that poor product so it can get free spyware/spamware with it :)
  • fallaha56 - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    not much point IMHO, you need hevc 10bit for proper UHD bluray support...
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    "However, given the other limitations of the form factor and the system, it is unlikely that the absence of HD audio bitstreaming will bother too many consumers."

    The only content I'm aware of that uses HD audio bitstreaming is Blu-ray and this device doesn't appear to struggle with playback of 1080p24 H.264. Looks like a deal-breaker to me. Maybe the Core m3 unit won't be nerfed.
  • eanazag - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Does it play Crysis?
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    I'd settle for 1:1 Blu-ray playback.
  • Flunk - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    It would have been nice if they shipped this with a useable amount of storage, 64GB at least. The $5 price difference isn't going to hurt anything.
  • kaidenshi - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    It's more than just the $5 hardware difference. Above the 32GB storage/1GB RAM mark, Microsoft considers this a full computer and not a so-called "limited device", therefore the licensing fee for Windows 10 jumps from $0 to $15, which Intel will then pass along at a $50 or more increase. At that point, the consumer may as well buy the m3 or better version.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yay, you guys reviewed the new Compute Stick! The benchmark numbers are encouraging, but as was already mentioned, 32GB is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I'm using an HP Stream 11 as my primary Windows computer and it absolutely requires a 64GB SD card for storage and most of my programs are installed on SD which is a sub optimal situation. Upgrading to a next generation device of any sort, even one that will fill the mundane role of video streaming is not something I'm interested in doing if it puts me in a similar squeeze due to a lack of storage capacity. Any future devices I purchase must have at least 64GB of internal storage so while the rest of the Cherry Trail refresh looks nice, this just isn't doable.
  • rpg1966 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Just add a micro SD card.
  • Flunk - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Installing your applications on a micro SD card isn't a great idea and embedded flash memory is cheap as chips, this is inexcusable.
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    I'm not arguing against the the miniscule amount of NAND for the OS, that's a travesty. However, SD cards work as well as any other storage medium in Windows. I've got a 128GB SD card in my 32GB W10 Bay Trail tablet and I don't have any issues. It's not breaking any speed records, but it's faster than is needed for a tablet of this magnitude.
  • mabsark - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    I'm got a Brix 1900 mini PC which I use as a HTPC / Plex Media Server. It's got 4 GB of RAM and a 30 GB SSD. It runs Windows 10, Kodi and Plex Media Server. There's still about 6 GB free. All the media is stored on my NAS so the HTPC doesn't need more storage.

    Compute Sticks are basically streaming devices. You're not going to be installing a load of apps or media on them so they don't really need much storage space.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    You do have a good argument, but my days of running in home servers and/or NAS units are long over. I don't want to deal with the hassle of being a systems administrator for my spouse and kids when all I really want my computers to do are provide connectivity, data processing, and entertainment at minimal operating overhead (power, space, heat & cooling, and time invested). That means ANY computer coming in the door needs to meet a certain set of criteria in painlessness of operation. 32GB of storage on a Windows box creates more problems than it solves and makes the Compute Stick a poor general purpose computing device. In my case, I don't deal with streaming media much except for the occasional YouTube clip or an Amazon video rental so the "everything else" a Compute Stick can do (or any other computer for that matter) is far more important than video playback and those other purposes do require a little more flash and, ideally, a couple more gigabytes of RAM.
  • mabsark - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    Beyond media and web browsing, what else would you be doing on such a weak system? If you need the functionality of a proper PC then you buy a proper PC, not something like a compute stick.

    The same applies to your HP Stream 11 which is clearly billed as a "cloud computer". Basically, you're looking at the wrong type of products for your needs and then complaining that they're not good enough. You may as well be complaining that it's unable to run the latest AA games at 4K.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    My TRS-80 packing a 1.7MHz Zilog Z80 could play games and run a word processor without storage capacity problems. I don't see why 35 years later, a budget PC with a general purpose x86 processor shouldn't be expected to do much, much better. Besides that, the price difference between 32 and 64GB of solid state memory is insignificant, even given the relative cost of the rest of the platform. It's a perfectly valid complaint.
  • Reflex - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    A budget PC nowadays does much, much more than your TRS-80 ever did. Granted, more is better, but the comparison you are making is ridiculous.
  • Lord of the Bored - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link

    Man, I'm still fighting to get the "instant-on" of my old 99/4a on a modern system. But at least boot times are starting to come back down. That's progress!
  • doggface - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link

    this argument is the worst. You could probably still play those games, and they would work a lot better. but not new games. and i bet your TRS-80 cost a bit more than $200 too.

    Completely different device. If you are looking to do anything more strenuous than basic internet or streaming.. you are barking up the wrong tree.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    "Completely different device. If you are looking to do anything more strenuous than basic internet or streaming.. you are barking up the wrong tree"

    That makes no sense at all to me. Cherry Trail systems have vastly more compute power than systems of not so long ago that were fully functional computers (ala 100MHz Pentiums, and TRS-80s). Given their immense computational capacity, there's no reason at all to intentionally limit the usage of such hardware to only a small subset of tasks billions of computers that came before it did perfectly fine with far more limited resources. It's a desktop PC in a small case and therefore it should be accordingly expected to handle any and all desktop PC chores a user requires so they don't need to waste money/time/space/effort buying a Compute Stick only to have to purchase an additional computer in one of many absurdly large, obsolete ATX-derived form factors.
  • Gunbuster - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Does this work on a 4K TV at 4K resolution? Pretty much useless if it doesn't IMHO...
  • dsraa - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    That's not what it's designed for.....
  • Gunbuster - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yeah okay, plugs into HDMI, guess what people have... 4K TV's.
  • easp - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    No, most people don't have 4K TVs and aren't rushing to buy them. Sorry. You see, you can't both have bragging rights for buying the latest and greatest and claim that everyone has them.
  • kaesden - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    its a shame there isn't a power over HDMI standard for devices like this so they could exist with no wires and just plug into a tv or monitor and be done with it.
  • Visual - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    And also USB over HDMI so you can use the TV's USB ports for extra storage etc...
    And while we are at it, make the TV expose its tuners and CI slot for use by the stick as well.
  • icrf - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    MHL is the closest we get. I don't know that many TVs have it. I think one of the ports on my receiver does. I think the Roku streaming stick uses it.
  • Visual - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    What are the odds we soon get a TV that's got one of these things built-in instead of sticking out? Lots already run Android or such, why not switch to x86 and full Windows?
  • Visual - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    (tho I do appreciate the mobility aspect of a stick too)
  • easp - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    And upgradability...
  • Bull Dog - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    "Netflix streaming evaluation was done using the Windows 8.1 Netflix app."

    Should that read the Windows 10 Netflix app?
  • ganeshts - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Thanks for pointing out the typo - it is fixed now.
  • augman2384 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Are you going to review the Kangaroo PC? It's also Cherry Trail and has other similarities but priced much cheaper at $99. It would be interesting to see it compared in the benchmarks.
  • Wombat2013 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yes, a Kangaroo PC review would be interesting/useful.
  • KenA - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    I picked up a Kanagroo PC at newegg for $99. It's great. And it has 4K Hdmi! I use it on my Vizio 4K 43" TV.
  • ToTTenTranz - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Well a high-pitch fan in a product like this is really a huge turn-off...

    One question and one request that may be of interest to many users:

    1 - It won't pass-through DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD, but does the HDMI sound codec support a linear-PCM output up to 7.1, and if so can it decode the compressed lossless formats and send through 24bit PCM?

    2 - Please, if not for this review then at least for the next ones, could you include a test with Steam In-Home Streaming in your suite?
  • ganeshts - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yes, it supports Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby Digital Plus up to 5.1 for sure. I will check and report on 7.1 later tonight.

    I have to check on the Steam In-Home Streaming - if there is a typical benchmark that can quickly assess the capabilities. If I need to have another PC running Steam and actually need to launch a game and play, then I fear it might be too much overhead to our benchmarking routine.
  • ToTTenTranz - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Thanks for the clarification! Then it's probably a matter of licensing alone.

    As for In-Home Streaming, you can just start a timedemo from any game from the client PC and watch the network statistics in it (it's an option in the In-Home Streaming settings).
    Since IHS supports the execution of pretty much any executable from the host PC, you can probably just run your already existing batch file from there.
  • jasonelmore - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    its a simple streaming test. What quality setting can it do? You can measure FPS. Use a game that gets good frame-rates like Portal 2 or TF2. As long as the Steam PC can do 60 FPS, then all of the other variables are moot.

    Use a usb ethernet adapter
  • BillyONeal - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Typo:
    maintaining a similar power envelop
    ->
    maintaining a similar power envelope.
  • bill.rookard - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Very cool little devices, and while I can appreciate the tiny form factor, it still doesn't seem to be as good as my Raspberry Pi quad core running OpenELEC, especially when factoring in the price.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    At any given moment, there are a dozen Z8300 equivalent tablets on sale for less than $200. As messed up as it is, I doubt we will ever see prices on these compute sticks go lower than the sale prices of atom tablets.
  • ruthan - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Even with Windows 10 license price tag is ridiculous, in comparision with ARM machines, remix mini is afaik fanless and for 40 bucks, yeah bigger form factor but who cares.. If someone needs something so small, bootable boot drive also solution, linux kernel booting almost on everything and almost everywhere is some slow pc "terminal" capable boot from usb.
  • ruthan - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yeah with present price of memory - is only 2gb and no 64bit 4gb nonsense.
  • DigitalFreak - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    "The eMMC capacity is only 32GB and the RAM is only 2GB - two aspects that have an artificial limitation imposed on them by Intel's decision to pre-install Windows 10 Home. Even though the information is not public, it is likely that Microsoft mandates neutering of a PC's hardware specifications in exchange for a lower price for the Windows 10 OEM license."
  • ruthan - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    Yeah is probably true both these companies are masters in crippling hw and sw capabilities just for greed.. i think they maked enough.
  • watzupken - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    After reading this review, I still don't see any value to the Compute stick. Currently, there are too many shortcomings with it, i.e. Limited storage, memory, very average performance, etc.
  • Hector2 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    I have a fast 3.5GHz 6-core Gulftown Windows PC but use my zippy little Celeron-based $180 Chromebox for almost ALL of my email and internet. The Windows OS needs more memory and compute resources than the Chrome OS. It'd be interesting to see if the Compute stick is as quick as my little Chromebox ... that probably won't happen soon, though.
  • amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, January 14, 2016 - link

    It'll be great if the next version comes with USB type c, so it deliveries video, audio, power from 1 connector.
  • darkich - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    I find these kind of devices to be an incomparably more fascinating pieces of technology than the biggest, baddest, most expensive pc towers out there
  • Madpacket - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    Thanks for the review Ganesh. While interesting I'll bite once the Core M versions with more local storage and no whiny fan are available.
  • kelemvor33 - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    Does it support wiping and reimaging with a Pro/Enterprise version? The original model did not as Intel wouldn't release drivers for it. That made it a pain to use in a business setting since you can't add it to your domain or do much remote management.
  • AmdInside - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link

    Can you comment how well it works as a Minecraft vanilla server? I picked up a Liva before and it kept crashing on Windows and Ubuntu for some reason so had to return it but wanted to buy something similar again
  • PragmaticPraxis - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link

    Does anyone have any experience with using a Compute Stick headless, using Remote Desktop? Do you need some sort of HDMI dongle?
    I ask because I see a use for me as a light weight FlexLM license server for a traveling computer lab environment. But I would want to simply plug it in to power and be done. if I need to have it connected to K, V & M then a cheap Windows tablet starts looking more attractive, at least when it comes to travel.
  • jasperjones - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link

    I used to visit Anandtech all the time. Now I rarely come here. Here's the reason: I think this review has little relevance for real life.

    Instead of what you're doing, I would compare this device with:
    - RPi 2
    - Apple TV
    - Nexus Player
    - Amazon Fire TV

    Also, I would comment on Linux performance. Seriously, 2GB RAM and Windows??
  • andrewaggb - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    I somewhat agree. The review is about the technical details, but some actual use cases would be nice as well. I'm actually somewhat interested in the cheap version (32gb, 2gb, atom) but I'd like to know that it can handle my use cases.

    How does itunes and movies/shows/audio from itunes work on it (versus say an apple tv). I'm a
    big fan of the new apple tv, but it cost me more than the compute stick and does a lot less.

    If I use it as a steam link to stream a game from a more powerful pc, how well does it work?

    Does XBMC or a similar front end work well.

    Can you install linux on it, boot from usb (with legacy bios), etc?
  • mkozakewich - Sunday, January 17, 2016 - link

    These are basically the same thing as equivalent tablets, except without the screen. I'd take a Chuwi Vi8 instead.
  • yon1000 - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    I truly don't understand the Price of the compute sticks - 150$+
    Windows Tablets cost as low as 100$ with the same processor and RAM these tablets have. and they add an HD display, a battery, Bluetooth and other hardware stuff, and above all they come with Windows 10 Installed and 1 year license of Office 365.
    So how come the compute sticks cost 50% more compared to Windows Tablets?
  • piasabird - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    I consider a compute stick to be a toy. Windows will not work on it well. If it came with some kind of Linux like a tablet has it might be comparable to a tablet, but not a desktop. It is just a toy.
  • velanapontinha - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    Ads are on overdrive on this website! Seriously, a giant ad for something related to National Geographic and an enormous "find a mexican lady" youporn-like photo is NOT the way to keep this site a respected one. Please stop this. Income is not everything, Purch!
  • 074geodude - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    My ad blocker only showed two blocked ads, that's actually really good. I've seen many sites that are a lot worst, some with 30+ blocked ads.
  • BurntMyBacon - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    Can we get a mainstream build for comparison just to see how far these miniature systems have come? It would also be a good comparison to show where these systems might be sub par. You could break out a separate section of the article or even a whole separate article on the state of miniature computing. This will be especially interesting when the Core-M sticks arrive.
  • 074geodude - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link

    Very technical review, but overall not very useful if you're a consumer. Things I would like to know that weren't answered in this review:

    - How long does it take to boot up?
    - Can it stream 4K video?
    - How's gaming performance? Are casual titles like Minecraft or League of Legends playable?
    - How's web browsing with only 2 GB of RAM? How well does Chrome run?
    - Can you clone the eMMC drive onto a microSD card and boot from that instead? (That way your external storage acts as your primary drive and you can have a 128 GB primary drive).
  • fackamato - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link

    +1
  • wyewye - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link

    test
  • trivor - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link

    Actually, I think micro PCs like the Dell 3050 or HP Stream are much better options. They have plenty of output options (4 or more USB ports, the Dell has a "real" M.2 SSD (user upgradeable up to a 2260 SSD - the 32 GB one is 2242), Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11AC WiFi, Celeron J1800). I think it will be fine as a media streamer with 13 GB left after installing the latest build of Windows 10. It may top out at 1080P but I think it's a couple of years before I'll worry about a 4K TV and 4K streaming. OBTW, I snagged the Micro 3050 over XMas @ $129. It also has both HDMI and Displayport and the RAM was easily accessible to upgrade to 8 GB for $30.
  • ComputerExpertsCA - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    Why aren't there more ultra small PCs, tablets, and netbooks with 4GB of ram. Even smart phones have 4GB of ram. Do Microsoft's discounted OS license require a small amount of RAM?
  • Teknobug - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link

    Yes 2GB ram and 32GB storage is the point where Windows 10 is free and doesn't need a key.
  • SilverBlade - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link

    No HD audio = not interested.

    Sorry...
  • floobit - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link

    Ganesh or other staff writers - The W10 space restrictions seem to be an issue for all of these "limited devices". Presumably some thought from the Microsoft marketing dept has gone into the thresholds, and I can't imagine they intend for the whole market segment to be crapware. Have you reached out to your contacts at MS (or Intel) to ask how they recommend making this category of device usable?

    Incidentally, some quick googling doesn't show anyone else with your deactivation issue, which doesn't sound like intended behavior. Have you reached out to MS about this?
  • Asherlying - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link

    I do not know exactly the advantage of Intel chipset, which is more commonly used in laptop, and the price exceeds the MINIX , http://www.tinydeal.com/minix-px347wp-p-157874.htm...
  • hindi-tips - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link

    Does this work on a 4K TV at 4K resolution?
    Please help me. https://hindi-tips.com/

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