State
of the
Art by ANTHONY FORDHAMKeep a PC in
Your Pocket
THE IDEA OF A FULL-FEATURED WINDOWS 10 (OR YOUR
preferred Linux) PC crammed into a pocket-sized box isn’t
new. But early explorations of this form-factor resulted in
machines that weren’t really good for anything, because they
had to make do with extremely low-powered CPUs and limited
storage. Now, high-performance chips that sip daintily on
electricity and don’t create too much heat are available, and
crucially so is high-performance storage. Teeny tiny PCs are
proliferating like weird mushrooms in a forest after heavy rain.
2/ Latte
http://www.latt
From $10
Don’t wo
of tiny PC
either. Pr
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Windows
can. Like t
teeny PC
CPU, and
either 2G
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board Ar
sor. This
of 32 gen
pose inp
put (or GP
headers,
which yo
plug your
robot’s v
sensors.1/ GPD Win 2
http://www.gpd.hk
$800+
Yes, it costs as much as a proper
laptop, but this gaming-focused
nano PC has it all... assume that
to you, “all” means a six-inch
720p touchscreen and built-in
gaming controller. With an Intel
m3-7Y30 2.6GHz CPU, 8GB of
RAM and 128GB of storage, it’s
nearly the same on the inside
as last year’s MacBook. Gamer
types will be alternately delight-
ed and frustrated with the Win
2’s ability to play many - but not
all - games, and can spend hours
tweaking all kinds of esoteric
settings to eke out another few
frames per second. It also has
enough ports and plugs on the
back to hook it up to a big display,
keyboard and mouse, and use
it as a normal desktop. Which
would be weird.3/ Kangaroo+ Mobile Desktop
http://www.kangaroo.cc
From $200
There are approximately nineteen
billion tiny PCs like this available online
right now, but only the Kangaroo+
comes with a battery and a fingerprint
reader. The former gives a claimed
four hours of “casual” unplugged use,
while the latter supports Windows
Hello for faster sign-ins. This extra
stuff comes at the expense of Win-
dows itself - you have to bring your
own operating system. An Intel Atom
x5-Z8500 2.24GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM
and 64GB of onboard storage aren’t
exactly cutting-edge, but will get the
job done. Especially when you consider
the Kangaroo+ is about the size of a32122 POPULAR SCIENCE