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  • Flunk - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    This could be interesting if it's really really cheap, otherwise it's just yet another competitor in a crowded market.
  • hughlle - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Yup. I see all these great looking little boxes that would be ideal, and then they go and whack an eye-watering price tag on it. No thanks.
  • chizow - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Yep, and right now there's really no competitor for the Alienware Alpha at around $400. There's some features the Alpha is missing compared to some of these NUC-type boxes (multi-monitor, HEVC, HDMI 2.0), but in terms of performance, upgradability, and overall bang for the buck, the Alpha is the one to beat in the Ultra-SFF segment.
  • bug77 - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    The thing is, HEVC and HDMI 2.0 is all these boxes are about. They're HTPCs after all.
  • chizow - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    There's not enough 4K content out there to make these HTPCs all about 4K, and everyone's definition of HTPC is going to be slightly different. For example, for someone who is more interested in some solid PC gaming, the Alpha is going to be far better for that vision of HTPC.
  • shompa - Saturday, May 16, 2015 - link

    HEVC is interesting for anyone with a digital library. H265 uses 50% of the datarate of H264. People with all-online libraries like me need this to continue to add stuff to the library without having to get petabyte storage. BTW upscaling to 4K is something that PC is really good at using a good scaler program.
  • LedHed - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    This is ASRock, of course it is going to be affordable. Ever since they released the ASRock Dual-SATA2 (PCIe & AGP) this company has been making waves. I'm really excited to see where they go in the next 10-20 years.
  • creed3020 - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Ah yes the ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA, I loved that motherboard. It carried through the dark ages of AGP into the light of PCIE and beyond. Also helped me bridge from IDE HDD to a SATA HDD.

    So many good upgrades went through that mobo!

    ASRock really helped with such an innovative product there.

    I like the look of these as drop-in HTPCs.
  • V900 - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Those specs and the remote control doesn't exavtly scream budget box, unfortunately...
  • shadarlo - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    That remote screams $1 max lol
  • nathanddrews - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    BC. Missed opportunity.
  • V900 - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    I built two BayTrail ITX boxes last year, to replace my dads ancient core2duo computer.

    Based on the 22nm BayTrail, I reckon this Cherry Trail Celeron would make a fine little fabless computer for both media boxes and regular computer tasks.

    The Bay Trail I used were the J1800 dual core (2,8 ghz) and the J1900 quad core (2,4 ghz) with 4 gb ram and a 128 gb SSD. Both worked great with both Windows7 and Windows8.1. They're snappy for both regular web browsing, playing videos, office work, a little bit of photo editing and even light, older games.

    The J1800 feels a tad bit faster in some tasks, maybe because of the higher boost frequency? That's the only difference I've noticed anyways.
  • Pissedoffyouth - Saturday, May 16, 2015 - link

    A core 2duo would be most likely same speed, but you'd have dropped power consumption by a ton
  • MrSpadge - Monday, May 18, 2015 - link

    For regular computer tasks you really don't want to a dual core Atom with 2.1 GHz maximum turbo. A slow dual core is already quite busy using todays software, even if most single tasks are still mostly single threaded.
  • mac_savant - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Ian, might want to check the specs on the N3000. Base frequency is 1.04, not 1.4 as you mention. I hate that they have to choose the wimpiest CPU from the lineup. I really want this with a quad-core processor, like the N3150.
  • Ian Cutress - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    Thanks for the catch :) Should be fixed.
  • DCide - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    Gold and White - now where did they get that idea?
  • mkozakewich - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    No, it's blue and black.

    *trollface*
  • piiman - Saturday, May 16, 2015 - link

    I get it!
  • wintermute000 - Friday, May 15, 2015 - link

    How about making it I dunno 1 litre, upping the TDP to normal laptop ranges and giving it some real grunt?

    Don't get the obsession with super small
  • Pissedoffyouth - Saturday, May 16, 2015 - link

    So you can hide it easier behind a monitor. plus its cute!
  • stephenbrooks - Saturday, May 16, 2015 - link

    Some people have been turning Raspberry Pis into media systems, admittedly with fairly limited capabilities (1080p video/TV playback), which provides some interesting price context for these sorts of boxes. They're smaller than this, too.

    Games might be the differentiator in this size soon. E.g. if you could make a "cute"-sized box that plays most games on medium settings at 720p, that'd be nice in the living room.
  • wintermute000 - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    You can VESA mount a NUC just fine and they manage to put 'real' laptop chips in there.
    Even with a fan its quiet enough for say HTPC.
  • grooves21 - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    Isn't the Celeron N3000 in this box technically a Braswell chip?
  • Ian Cutress - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    Braswell is the name for the SoC based on Cherry Trail / Airmont cores.
  • MadMan007 - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    What's fun about this is the USB type-c port charging power is almost 4x the TDP of the CPU :D
  • angrypatm - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link

    I would like to see an amd apu (a10) based solution with good analog audio output.
  • HideOut - Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - link

    Im just more concerned about the weak audio codec for a media PC usage scenario...
  • iAPX - Thursday, May 21, 2015 - link

    Hot!
  • niraj1981 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Guys, We are a Bangalore based company and have launched first Intel Cherry Trail based computer on stick to convert any display like your TV, Monitor or projector into a powerful Windows computer. See the link below. you can join and place the pre order. It’s avaialble on Indiegogo for $99 only for early birds. Just register on the blow link: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/31658-magicsti...

    http://www.MagicStick.net

    The best part is: It's as productive as your laptop - and is an engineering masterpeice. Just have a look at the website. Others are no where near about it. Some of the unique specs are: 1. Over 1 Gbps Wi-Fi,
    2. Intel Latest Cherry Trail processor with Intel Gen8 16 Core GPU,
    3. USB3.1 with over 10 Gbps speed and C-type connector.
    4. IOT - you can control it using your mobile phone.
    and lot many others..

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