Could you have imagined a world where you'd have a smartphone that's as powerful as a high-end PC? Well, that's what the first reviews of the iPhone 6S claim. It is supposedly as fast as Apple's new retina MacBook, which was introduced only months earlier. Yes, that's the world we live in. But it is also a world where you can get a powerful computer inside a gadget that is barely as big as a pen drive or a bar of chocolate. This gadget is called a 'Compute Stick' and it was introduced by Intel earlier.
Its premise is simple: A full Windows PC that can be carried in your pocket and hooked up with a keyboard and a monitor with almost no setup. Intel has released the 'Compute Stick' like a reference design for manufacturers and local vendor iBall has jumped on the bandwagon. Its Splendo is one of the first devices based on Intel's turnkey solution.
The big question out here is if it's a viable computing solution. Well, that's what we intend to find out.
What is it?
The Splendo is a tiny little device, which is just slightly bigger than a USB drive. One end has a HDMI jack and on the sides it has two USB ports and a micro-USB, which doubles as a power port. There's also a microSD card slot and a dedicated power button. That's it.
iBall hasn't specified the dimensions of the product, but we can confirm it is tiny. It is bigger than both the Chromecast and the Teewe, but only slightly. The build quality of the device is quite nice for the price and the shipped keyboard is of good quality. That said, the keyboard and mouse shipped in our review box did not work. The problem was likely with the Bluetooth.
How to set it up?
Intel promises that there is almost zero downtime in setting up the Compute Stick and it wasn't kidding. All you need to do is hook it up with any type of screen that has a HDMI port. Be it a TV, or a monitor. You connect the device to power and turn it on and boom, you have Windows running on the monitor. Or in the other words, your TV is now your computer.
Of course, when you set it up for the first time you need to go through the usual Windows setup process, but once that's done, it is as simple as turning on a Windows PC.
The Splendo comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse, which works through Bluetooth. As Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is inbuilt, iBall claims that you don't even need to setup the keyboard and mouse. The review unit we were supplied had a faulty keyboard and mouse, but we exchanged that with our own trusty Logitech K260.
Does it work?
Yes, it works. And that is magical! To be honest, this is a low-end PC, a basic, barebones setup, which should be good for browsing the web, email, watching movies, Microsoft Office and listening to music. You can't play high-end games with the Splendo or do video editing. It is too slow for that. But for normal workload, it is good enough.
Anyone who invests in the compute stick should realise that as this makes for a great first PC or a travel computer for someone who doesn't want to carry something more valuable like a laptop or tablet.
The Splendo is powered by an Intel Atom processor - a 4-core processor -- that is similar to the one we've seen on mobile phones. The CPU is coupled with 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage, which is a bare minimum you'd need for a Windows computer.
Thankfully, it has a two USB ports, so if you think you are running short on memory you can always hook up your external hard drive or a high capacity thumb drive for more. It also supports USB on-the-go.
In our usage, we found it to be a slow computer but then keeping the low price in mind, we feel it is a product that offer adequate functionality. We found the performance to be adequate for basic tasks like browsing the web on Chrome. We even managed to have more than 10 tabs open simultaneously. The only problem was that the app launch times were rather slow.
The compute stick even managed to play 1080p MKV video and we had no issues running the latest Microsoft Office 2016 on it. We tested Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, which are the Office apps used by the large majority.
We even managed to edit images on Adobe Photoshop. Again, this wasn't heavy duty image editing, but rather basic stuff cropping and resizing of a high resolution image so that we could upload to Facebook.
Software
The Splendo comes with Windows 8.1 installed on it out-of-the-box and can be upgraded to Windows 10. It comes with the basic version of Windows 8.1 - Windows 8.1 with Bing, but for this sort of machine it is adequate. Thankfully, it was bereft of any manufacturer level bloatware. At the end of the day, it is a Windows machine - if you like Windows then it is fine, but if you don't there really isn't an alternative option.
Should you buy it?
Depending on your use-case, the iBall Splendo makes for a great basic computing experience. It may not have the bells and whistles of Apple's latest MacBook or some of the new Windows 10 PCs, but it is a simple - ingenious little gadget that will get you the full power of Windows.
Largely, we believe it is a great solution for someone looking for a Windows PC experience who probably doesn't want to spend more than Rs.10,000. Such a person can easily hook up the Splendo to a TV, considering the TV has a HDMI port, or a compatible monitor. It is also a great travel companion as you don't need to carry an expensive gadget to get connected to the world
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