Intel Compute Stick nets upgrade
I reviewed the original [Bay Trail] Intel Compute Stick about a year ago, and while it was neat – the media/Wi-Fi performance was a bit anemic. Of course, as is the case with many things, a little bit of time (allowing for steady march of improvement) can fix a lot. So I’m much more enthusiastic about the upcoming Cherry Trail and especially Core M versions of the Compute Stick. If you are interested in seeing what is in store, Anandtech has the skinny.
The desktop PC market is seeing growth only in two areas – the gaming high-end and the mini-PCs (in the NUC form factor). Intel has been strengthening its offerings in the latter space as a system vendor. The NUC has been extremely popular and Intel’s partners such as Zotac and GIGABYTE are also enjoying a lot of success with similarly sized systems.
ARM SoC vendors started the trend of HDMI sticks, but Intel joined the game in CES 2015 with the Bay Trail Compute Stick. The first iteration was, to put it kindly, a bit underwhelming, but Intel showed its commitment to the form factor by announcing three new Compute Stick models at CES 2016.