And good thing this reviewer was their review for videocards so it slowed down the review! Wait, what?!? They have multiple reviewers and one review happening from 1 reviewer isn't related to how long another is taking?!?!
Except it doesn't matter which review the comment was posted on, the GTX 1080 review is still 1 month late. The Pascal cards were hyped up as hell, but Anandtech has failed to deliver.
Who can review devices consumers are interested in when there are shiny Apple toys to play with? How many months did they spend on the iGarbage Pro review?
I mean it's taking them over 3 months just to write up HALF of the Galaxy S7 review due to "OH I'M HAVING FINALS" but cmon, finals last for like 1 month max...
You are totally right about that. CrApple shitviews shouldn't even exist on this website. It used to be a quality reviews site, but it's been falling for some time now, especially since Anand left for....you guessed it, CrApple.
Such a stupid argument every time I see it. If people stop coming to the site because of the lack of desired content, then the advertisers will stop paying.
So only the content you care about matters? Or you're the high arbiter over what content attracts more readers? Everyone and their mom has a GTX 1080 review, honestly I don't see what we're missing without AT's besides maybe some architecture insights...
At least those whining about the S7/HTC 10 have more of point, AT's smartphone content has always been pretty unique and much more in depth than anyone else's... And the smartphone upgrade cycle/churn is faster than GPU's (which are constantly sold out right now anyway).
Instead of asking my money back I am simply not giving it. AT is not whitelisted in my ad blocker. And with the way it handles ads they are not simply hidden, they aren't loaded to begin with.
The adds on this site are getting way out of hand, Now the promoted stories bullahiat at the end of the article with no relevance to the site itself. Absolutely horrible. I can barely view the site on a mobile device anymore. Time to find an ad blocker for mobile? I need to find one.
As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, ads are controlled by our publisher, Purch. So I don't have direct control over the situation.
However feedback like this is immensely useful, and I'd like to note that I make it a policy to pass along all of this feedback to Purch so that they're made aware of what you guys think. Don't underestimate the value of feedback; even if it's not always visible, we're frequently looking at what you guys have to say.
I'd say drop the outbrain links. They are literally an eyesore, and I sincerely hope every Anandtech reader has the common sense not to click on them. Leave the garbage ads for WCCFtech or some other sellout website.
Ads are fine, when they are relevant to the article. I've never seen an outbrain, or its eviller twin taboola, ad come close to the content of the article. And some of those images arent always "work friendly".
Oddly, the most relevant ads I see are still print ads in paper magazines that cater to a specific interest. Without javascript or cookies, they manage to be more relevant than anything tailored for me has ever been. How is that?
Thanks for this comment Ryan, it is reassuring that you (plural) at least check the comments, especially because some can be quite hurtful and inconsiderate.
Ohhhh... Is that what that stuff is? I'm on vacation and those ads aren't loading, so I've been getting this wall of non-loaded junk that I need to scroll through on my 5S before I get to the comment section.
I can just see it now, the very first comment on the eventual GTX 1080 FE review will read "well, this is useless, custom cards are already out"... And then the second comment will be about the missing HTC 10 review. :p
A cursory glance at the number of comments for each topic will clearly demonstrate where the readership's interest lies. The number of clicks can be deceiving, but those that will actually take the time to comment are far more engaged, and I would assume are far more valuable to the advertisers. There are hundreds of comments on each of the GPU articles, even pipeline stories. It would seem that nearly half of the comments on other articles are actually about the HTC 10, Galaxy S7, the GTX 1080/1070, and the lack of journalism regarding those products. It is quite clear what the audience is clamoring for. Josh literally spent months with the iPad pro, months! The corresponding number of comments on that article would indicate this time was poorly invested, as he could have easily churned out a half dozen articles on gadgets the readership is actually interested in, as opposed to the handful of Apple fanboys who frequent this site. Ryan, I know you read these comments, I know you see the numbers. Why on earth are products nobody is interested in, taking priority over the products we desperately want to read about? I don't care what other sites have said about the 1080, there is a reason I come to Anandtech and not TomsHardware. I value the analysis here far more, but if that analysis comes, I feel like a groom left at the altar, just waiting and waiting....
irrelevant, video cards are one of the product categories that generate the most hype, if the reviewer isn't able to deliver anymore he could ship the card to somebody else.
Still, if people come visit the site regardless of timely delivery of video card reviews, then it's not worth the effort.
I have no excuses (none that would interest you guys, at least). But it is still a critical article, and one I intend to deliver soon.
In the meantime I have a request: could you guys please stop asking reviewers who aren't me where the 1080 review is? This is entirely my own doing, and harassing them isn't going to make it appear any sooner. In the meantime it's distracting from articles such as these, where the comments are supposed to be about the product.
I've been wondering the same thing. There have been multiple articles on niche products which the vast majority of people could care less about yet a major video card launch goes unnoticed.
Yeah, sadly, this has been going on for a while...
There never was a review of the gtx 960, just a launch announcement. When I commented about it earlier this year I was told "it's coming" and here we are, waiting for the 1080 series...
I don't know what is happening with the video card reviews, but they sure aren't what they used to be or even remotely timely.
Anandtech used to release them the day of launch with full reviews, now it's weeks/months late, and sometimes never.
Just in general, until this type of device can drop the power adapter, I don't see how it's form-factor (sticking out of a TV) is that much of an advantage over something that sits on the desk. Whether it's HDMI or some other standard.
I think it's a dumb format, if you have a power brick and cable laying around anyway, it doesn't make a difference to have it attached to the TV or lying on the floor.
They'll be USB C with DisplayPort passed through. Either the TV will act as a USB hub, or you could connect a USB hub between the dongle and the TV to get access to ports.
"Small and power-efficient computers in the form of NUCs and Compute Sticks have emerged as bright spots in the PC market over the last few years."
Then Intel canned Atom and that bright spot went away. The Atom compute sticks were already on the edge of affordability, these Core M models are more than twice the price and thus make exactly zero financial sense unless you absolutely need x86.
Even the best atom was at the edge of "oh I think this performance might be okay this time around, and then you load it up in real world multi app workload and it slows to a crawl"
If they moved Core M pricing into the world of sanity everything would be perfect.
I've got a Asus Atom powered T100HA with 4GB. Doesn't make a difference. Once you have a real workload like OneDrive, Dropbox, Skype, OneNote, Chrome, Outlook running is starts to lag. It's not pegging out the RAM or Storage, It just struggles that little bit in everything and it gets really frustrating.
I use Process Lasso on low-end machines like this and it helps a lot. Even a 2010 netbook became reasonably useable with Office etc. Try the free version.
2 GB was generally enough. Even when there was plenty of free RAM, though, the Atom processor was barely able to load heavy web pages. Chrome in particular seemed to run sluggish (especially on infinitely scrolling pages, like Tumblr).
Chrome is burdened more than other web browsers because the system is not only busy logging and reporting user activity to Microsoft, but also doing the same with browser activity to Google plus the site you're surfing is usually keeping an eye on your usage too. The double/triple data mining penalty is pretty hard on a low-power chip like the Atom. Firefox with a noscript (as long as you don't mind breaking a lot of website functionality and then having to pick through individual blocked script sources to find the right ones to restore those functions) usually will vastly improve web performance on an Atom CPU.
We're using a few of the Cherry Trail sticks (STK1AW32SC) for simple slideshow-style screens at work; their footprint is miniscule compared to the laptops we used to have, meaning we can hide them away. The m3 would be overkill in this case, plus I can get three of the Atom models for the same price which work just fine.
I am pretty excited that these are getting better... but who are these supposed to be marketed to exactly? The specs aren't quite there for an office or school machine (but close! just ditch the fan and give a bit more onboard storage). For the HTPC market (is that really a market outside of a few video enthusiasts?) it is just about right on specs, but for the price there are far better options if you don't mind a slightly larger form factor.
If intel wants to sell gobs and gobs of computers then they really need to do the following: Quad Core CPU (or dual with HT), m series is actuially fine, but an i3 would be better 8GB of RAM 128GB solid state storage (SSD or even eMMC) GPU (and ports) capable of 2 1080p displays, and hardware acceleration for newest video codecs (HEVC and VP9/AV1) Fanless Headphone jack (seriously, have a bunch of NUCs without a jack... such a pain!) Secure-able (so they don't walk off when plugged into the back of a monitor) Win10 Pro preloaded Compute Stick or NUC form factor 3 year warranty $400 or less
Schools and businesses would buy these up in droves! NUCs are almost there, but they tend to have fans, and system builders typically exceed the $400 price point once configured with RAM and SSD; business could build it themselves for less, but they are in the business of doing business instead of building their own custom PCs. Maybe another year or two and we will see this happen?
In Core Ms ~5W power envelope, I suspect most people would be better on a dual, even if they think they want a quad.
In such low power spaces a quad just means each core is running at a significantly reduced clock over a dual. It's the same reason why there was that 28W quad which no manufacturer picked, as the dual cores were faster 90% of the time. Especially for, you know, most people getting a 28W CPU, let alone those getting a 5W one.
That's somewhat debatable IMHO. If there's one thing that's usually true: people never complain about having too much power, proper thermal and power management usually keeps that all under control. They always complain though if it's not powerful enough.
At home I have a Samsung 3D TV that I paid a fortune for, and other than the software / online side to the device, I'm very happy with. The issue is - after 4yrs, Samsung no longer updates their smart TV, and thus I cannot even finish a single episode of anything on iPlayer, without it rebooting. And the smart TV interface is painful to use.
I think this device would bridge the gap, and allow me to keep this TV another 4 years.
But that price...it won't convert well when it hits the UK shores...
I hear that a lot. People jumped on the 3D TV and smart TV fads which are both are rapidly deflating markets making them unprofitable to continue to support from an OEM perspective. You're probably better off using a Roku or some other similar set top box. A compute stick seems like overkill for your usage scenario.
However, I don't stream Hulu, or Netflix, but only from the BBCs iPlayer, in accordance with my non-license-paying laws.
But I DO use Youtube, and have hated most every linux interface I've seen, so I really Need / Want a Windows user environment.
At $200 this would be an insta-buy. At $300, I dunno, I guess I'd have to be stateside to really decide, but when it lands at 299 GBP, they can stuff it. (that is my price GUESS).
I'll certainly be adding it to my Ebay 2nd hand search, just in case a fool dumps one cheaply...
I currently have an Amazon Firestick. It works really good for Netflix, Hulu, etc. You can also put Kodi on it. It's not the most polished interface and experience but it does work. I think you can do more with it too, I just haven't figured it all out.
pretty much sums it up. The atoms are just not fast enough, I have a couple quad core atom devices and it's just slightly too slow. I have a core-m 5th gen laptop and it's usable. I still think it's actually just bordering on too slow, but for the most part I'm ok with it. I certainly wouldn't want anything slower than that.
So close. The waiting game will continue, I just want a device that can be used for streaming and surfing the web, with a few super basic (low settings) games my kids can play. I want that but at $200 or less. My wife's laptop would beat the crap out of this thing (I know, different form factor) for 25% less $. Intel needs a seismic shift in strategy, the days of 70%+ margins are over.
I'm seeing a common trend with the Skull Candy NUC. The hardware is interesting enough for me to want to toy around with, but the pricing just pushes them over the interest range. It looks like Intel is making these to try to push their margins up rather than try to gain significant self-built hardware marketshare.
Actually, if partners keep screwing the pooch, they should pull a Surface (not the concept, but the idea of vertical integration) and make some great laptops and desktops.
No. That would be a terrible business strategy since it would undermine your trust in our reviews.
We have run sponsored content in the past - which was clearly labeled - but that is always news/analysis and such; never reviews.
Otherwise I direct you to our About page section on sampling.
--
The majority of what we review is provided directly by the manufacturer of the product. The product samples are delivered to our reviewers with the expectations of us providing a fair, thorough review. There is never any implicit guarantee of positive or negative, just that the review will be done as well as we can. In the early days, when we were a much smaller site, manufacturers would threaten to withhold future review samples in response to a negative review (not so blatantly as that of course). We have quietly lost and gained the support of manufacturers throughout the years based on reviews. I've personally had many arguments with manufacturers who dare attempt to either knowingly deceive our readers or use advertising dollars or product support to influence our reviews. Today, we are large enough to avoid these petty discussions of withholding review samples. Most manufacturers know that one way or another we'll get our hands on a product for review and don't try to play these sorts of games. Rarely we are faced with a manufacturer or advertiser who is looking to influence our content. We have a firm internal policy in place to deliver honest, balanced reviews to the best of our ability - regardless of external pressures. Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, we have been around long enough and are large enough to avoid this being an issue in the vast majority of situations.
Huh... I may have use for a tiny, simple server at some point, and one of these would about fit the bill. Just need to add a USB Ethernet port and upgrade Windows 10 to Pro and it should work...
You might be better off getting some cheap hardware off eBay at this point until the pricing comes down. Pick up a Dell Optiplex SFF for $100ish (just got one for $90 myself), outfit it with a notebook drive for the OS and a big HDD for storage and run it with a Linux system with Samba. That would do the trick nicely.
Even 64 GB storage is on the low side. Common. 128 Gb would add $5 max to the BOM. Sell it to me for $30 more and I would take it over 64 gb. NUC sounds like a better investment and more flexible.
The use of a tiny fan concerns me. It's often the little fans that die young. Perhaps building the enclosure from (admittedly expensive) aluminum would be sufficient to allow for a solid state design?
Contrary to some of these comments. I love these reviews Ganesh. I have a bay trail computestick, and it runs OK for what I do with it. I loaded it with ubuntu and have it running multiple lxc containers.
I think I'll skip this generation, although I can't wait for next years model, hopefully with HDMI 2.0. Once they have that, I think the next Atom, or whatever Intel use in this segment, based model will be a no brainer in most HTPC situations.
It's what's most disappointing in all this small form-factor reviews: At what point is this product *not* going to be useful to you? And all it ever does is cover stuff that I know already is going to work fine. Since I know that 10-bit won't be hardware accelerated (whereas everything that's tested is), it's impossible to even guess at how it compares in areas that you actually need a reviewer to look at.
I have one of these and one of the m5 versions and I pretty much agree with Anandtech's conclusions. They're the first compute stick that feel "fast enough" for basic office/browsing/htpc tasks. But they're definitely a bit on the expensive side.
From what I've seen elsewhere and my personal experience the m5 version is a little faster for bursty workloads, but about on par with the m3 for anything sustained. The graphics might be a bit more powerful, though. Probably not worth the price difference.
Also, on a different topic, Anandtech seriously needs to put some improvements into the commenting system. I had to get to page 4 just to find a single comment about the article... A way to collapse comment threads would probably be good enough, although voting or some kind of moderation might be even better.
I would like to see comparison of this to something like an STX system where you can use normal DDR4 Ram and a standard CPU, with an M.2 SSD drive, and also an ITX system. All this to determine if it is worth it and also what are the advantages to having a larger drive and more RAM.
This website is going from bad to worse. There are few reviews and at least half of them are about cases and shit like that. I am going to remove you from my bookmarks.
True. what's with all the SSD reviews? I don't understand why SSDs are so interesting, an upgrade makes little or no difference to system performance unless you move from HDD to SSD or maybe from SATA to NVMe on PCIe or m.2. Don't get it.
Replying here, it’s remarkable at playing hevc content 1080p tested upto 2mbps. So happy with the performance. Thank you intel. It’s my dream media player. I am running Ubuntu 18. So easy to setup.
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105 Comments
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pencea - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
A month has passed and yet still not a single review of the GTX 1080.testbug00 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
And good thing this reviewer was their review for videocards so it slowed down the review! Wait, what?!? They have multiple reviewers and one review happening from 1 reviewer isn't related to how long another is taking?!?!RaichuPls - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Except it doesn't matter which review the comment was posted on, the GTX 1080 review is still 1 month late. The Pascal cards were hyped up as hell, but Anandtech has failed to deliver.ddriver - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I guess they are too busy reviewing useless overpriced garbage ;)fanofanand - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Who can review devices consumers are interested in when there are shiny Apple toys to play with? How many months did they spend on the iGarbage Pro review?RaichuPls - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I mean it's taking them over 3 months just to write up HALF of the Galaxy S7 review due to "OH I'M HAVING FINALS" but cmon, finals last for like 1 month max...JoshHo - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The Galaxy S7 part 2 review is effectively a rewrite of part 1 and an extension, so it is quite a bit more than just half of a review."Finals" is probably not a full explanation of the situation but I'll avoid discussing these issues until I'm finished with at least one review.
3ogdy - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
You are totally right about that. CrApple shitviews shouldn't even exist on this website. It used to be a quality reviews site, but it's been falling for some time now, especially since Anand left for....you guessed it, CrApple.michael2k - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
The website would probably fold without Apple articles.Venya - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Useless overpriced garbage - you mean GTX 1080?Devo2007 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Hey, us phone guys are still waiting on the full Galaxy S7 review and the HTC 10.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
We should start a timer.Jimster480 - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
I'd love a review on the HTC 10. Especially since I have had one for months now.Cygni - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
You should ask for your money back. Oh wait.abrowne1993 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Such a stupid argument every time I see it. If people stop coming to the site because of the lack of desired content, then the advertisers will stop paying.Impulses - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
So only the content you care about matters? Or you're the high arbiter over what content attracts more readers? Everyone and their mom has a GTX 1080 review, honestly I don't see what we're missing without AT's besides maybe some architecture insights...At least those whining about the S7/HTC 10 have more of point, AT's smartphone content has always been pretty unique and much more in depth than anyone else's... And the smartphone upgrade cycle/churn is faster than GPU's (which are constantly sold out right now anyway).
abrowne1993 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I didn't make any mention of the content I wanted. I'm speaking for every unanswered complaint.Cygni - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
And that would be AnandTech's problem, not yours. Nobody cares what articles you think they should or shouldn't produce to get advertisers.ddriver - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Instead of asking my money back I am simply not giving it. AT is not whitelisted in my ad blocker. And with the way it handles ads they are not simply hidden, they aren't loaded to begin with.wolfemane - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The adds on this site are getting way out of hand, Now the promoted stories bullahiat at the end of the article with no relevance to the site itself. Absolutely horrible. I can barely view the site on a mobile device anymore. Time to find an ad blocker for mobile? I need to find one.Ryan Smith - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, ads are controlled by our publisher, Purch. So I don't have direct control over the situation.However feedback like this is immensely useful, and I'd like to note that I make it a policy to pass along all of this feedback to Purch so that they're made aware of what you guys think. Don't underestimate the value of feedback; even if it's not always visible, we're frequently looking at what you guys have to say.
redfirebird15 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I'd say drop the outbrain links. They are literally an eyesore, and I sincerely hope every Anandtech reader has the common sense not to click on them. Leave the garbage ads for WCCFtech or some other sellout website.Ads are fine, when they are relevant to the article. I've never seen an outbrain, or its eviller twin taboola, ad come close to the content of the article. And some of those images arent always "work friendly".
Ascaris - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Oddly, the most relevant ads I see are still print ads in paper magazines that cater to a specific interest. Without javascript or cookies, they manage to be more relevant than anything tailored for me has ever been. How is that?Agent Smith - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
I use 'Block Bear' app, works very well and allows whitelist updates on your device.jann5s - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Thanks for this comment Ryan, it is reassuring that you (plural) at least check the comments, especially because some can be quite hurtful and inconsiderate.Sushisamurai - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Ohhhh... Is that what that stuff is? I'm on vacation and those ads aren't loading, so I've been getting this wall of non-loaded junk that I need to scroll through on my 5S before I get to the comment section.bug77 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Most plugins work for Mobile Firefox. Including AdBlock and (untested by me) NoScript.Impulses - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I can just see it now, the very first comment on the eventual GTX 1080 FE review will read "well, this is useless, custom cards are already out"... And then the second comment will be about the missing HTC 10 review. :pfanofanand - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
A cursory glance at the number of comments for each topic will clearly demonstrate where the readership's interest lies. The number of clicks can be deceiving, but those that will actually take the time to comment are far more engaged, and I would assume are far more valuable to the advertisers. There are hundreds of comments on each of the GPU articles, even pipeline stories. It would seem that nearly half of the comments on other articles are actually about the HTC 10, Galaxy S7, the GTX 1080/1070, and the lack of journalism regarding those products. It is quite clear what the audience is clamoring for. Josh literally spent months with the iPad pro, months! The corresponding number of comments on that article would indicate this time was poorly invested, as he could have easily churned out a half dozen articles on gadgets the readership is actually interested in, as opposed to the handful of Apple fanboys who frequent this site. Ryan, I know you read these comments, I know you see the numbers. Why on earth are products nobody is interested in, taking priority over the products we desperately want to read about? I don't care what other sites have said about the 1080, there is a reason I come to Anandtech and not TomsHardware. I value the analysis here far more, but if that analysis comes, I feel like a groom left at the altar, just waiting and waiting....fanofanand - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
if that analysis never comes. Sigh, stupid 2001 era commenting board :( give us an edit function!Murloc - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
irrelevant, video cards are one of the product categories that generate the most hype, if the reviewer isn't able to deliver anymore he could ship the card to somebody else.Still, if people come visit the site regardless of timely delivery of video card reviews, then it's not worth the effort.
prisonerX - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
They cancelled it due to the childish whining.Ryan Smith - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
It'll be a little bit longer, but it is coming.I have no excuses (none that would interest you guys, at least). But it is still a critical article, and one I intend to deliver soon.
In the meantime I have a request: could you guys please stop asking reviewers who aren't me where the 1080 review is? This is entirely my own doing, and harassing them isn't going to make it appear any sooner. In the meantime it's distracting from articles such as these, where the comments are supposed to be about the product.
Agent Smith - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Ryan, will your upcoming reviews of both the 1080 and 480 GPU's include their encode and decode capabilities?If so, will they include HVEC results?
Thanks!
Agent Smith - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Typo: meant HEVC (H.265)zlandar - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I've been wondering the same thing. There have been multiple articles on niche products which the vast majority of people could care less about yet a major video card launch goes unnoticed.Vorl - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Yeah, sadly, this has been going on for a while...There never was a review of the gtx 960, just a launch announcement. When I commented about it earlier this year I was told "it's coming" and here we are, waiting for the 1080 series...
I don't know what is happening with the video card reviews, but they sure aren't what they used to be or even remotely timely.
Anandtech used to release them the day of launch with full reviews, now it's weeks/months late, and sometimes never.
Michael Bay - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Well, maybe AT is just not a GPU site anymore.Furunomoe - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Nowadays, I only visit AnandTech to read about interesting gadgets. I have TPU for all of my PC hardware needs now.more-or-less - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
It will come when it will come!They are short-stuffed, and that's obvious. Also the level of technical detail require time to write.
jaydee - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Until this thing can get power over HDMI, I just can't see these going far.nathanddrews - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
HDMI doesn't offer the power required to charge a phone, let alone peak usage from a Chromecast. I think you meant MHL/SuperMHL?lilmoe - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
My next TV will have USB-C ports, that's for sure. Fully featured ones at that.jaydee - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Just in general, until this type of device can drop the power adapter, I don't see how it's form-factor (sticking out of a TV) is that much of an advantage over something that sits on the desk. Whether it's HDMI or some other standard.Murloc - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
also sticking out of the TV poses various issues.I think it's a dumb format, if you have a power brick and cable laying around anyway, it doesn't make a difference to have it attached to the TV or lying on the floor.
mkozakewich - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
They'll be USB C with DisplayPort passed through. Either the TV will act as a USB hub, or you could connect a USB hub between the dongle and the TV to get access to ports.The_Assimilator - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
"Small and power-efficient computers in the form of NUCs and Compute Sticks have emerged as bright spots in the PC market over the last few years."Then Intel canned Atom and that bright spot went away. The Atom compute sticks were already on the edge of affordability, these Core M models are more than twice the price and thus make exactly zero financial sense unless you absolutely need x86.
RIP compute stick, we hardly knew you.
Gunbuster - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Even the best atom was at the edge of "oh I think this performance might be okay this time around, and then you load it up in real world multi app workload and it slows to a crawl"If they moved Core M pricing into the world of sanity everything would be perfect.
beginner99 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Yeah but that was probably due to only 2GB of ram and slow storage. 2GB is just not enough.Gunbuster - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I've got a Asus Atom powered T100HA with 4GB. Doesn't make a difference. Once you have a real workload like OneDrive, Dropbox, Skype, OneNote, Chrome, Outlook running is starts to lag. It's not pegging out the RAM or Storage, It just struggles that little bit in everything and it gets really frustrating.damianrobertjones - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
A combination of a very slow SSD and 2Gb is never a good thing no matter what CPU.Arbie - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I use Process Lasso on low-end machines like this and it helps a lot. Even a 2010 netbook became reasonably useable with Office etc. Try the free version.mkozakewich - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
2 GB was generally enough. Even when there was plenty of free RAM, though, the Atom processor was barely able to load heavy web pages. Chrome in particular seemed to run sluggish (especially on infinitely scrolling pages, like Tumblr).BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Chrome is burdened more than other web browsers because the system is not only busy logging and reporting user activity to Microsoft, but also doing the same with browser activity to Google plus the site you're surfing is usually keeping an eye on your usage too. The double/triple data mining penalty is pretty hard on a low-power chip like the Atom. Firefox with a noscript (as long as you don't mind breaking a lot of website functionality and then having to pick through individual blocked script sources to find the right ones to restore those functions) usually will vastly improve web performance on an Atom CPU.silverblue - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
We're using a few of the Cherry Trail sticks (STK1AW32SC) for simple slideshow-style screens at work; their footprint is miniscule compared to the laptops we used to have, meaning we can hide them away. The m3 would be overkill in this case, plus I can get three of the Atom models for the same price which work just fine.Pissedoffyouth - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
How is the Linux support for these sticks?nfriedly - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Excellent in my experience. Ubuntu 16.04 works perfectly out of the box, and 14.04 mostly works (no wifi drivers, though).Intel sells a m5 version with no OS, although it's more expensive honestly not much faster than the m3 version with windows.
Pissedoffyouth - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
CheersCaedenV - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I am pretty excited that these are getting better... but who are these supposed to be marketed to exactly? The specs aren't quite there for an office or school machine (but close! just ditch the fan and give a bit more onboard storage). For the HTPC market (is that really a market outside of a few video enthusiasts?) it is just about right on specs, but for the price there are far better options if you don't mind a slightly larger form factor.If intel wants to sell gobs and gobs of computers then they really need to do the following:
Quad Core CPU (or dual with HT), m series is actuially fine, but an i3 would be better
8GB of RAM
128GB solid state storage (SSD or even eMMC)
GPU (and ports) capable of 2 1080p displays, and hardware acceleration for newest video codecs (HEVC and VP9/AV1)
Fanless
Headphone jack (seriously, have a bunch of NUCs without a jack... such a pain!)
Secure-able (so they don't walk off when plugged into the back of a monitor)
Win10 Pro preloaded
Compute Stick or NUC form factor
3 year warranty
$400 or less
Schools and businesses would buy these up in droves! NUCs are almost there, but they tend to have fans, and system builders typically exceed the $400 price point once configured with RAM and SSD; business could build it themselves for less, but they are in the business of doing business instead of building their own custom PCs. Maybe another year or two and we will see this happen?
tipoo - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
In Core Ms ~5W power envelope, I suspect most people would be better on a dual, even if they think they want a quad.In such low power spaces a quad just means each core is running at a significantly reduced clock over a dual. It's the same reason why there was that 28W quad which no manufacturer picked, as the dual cores were faster 90% of the time. Especially for, you know, most people getting a 28W CPU, let alone those getting a 5W one.
bill.rookard - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
That's somewhat debatable IMHO. If there's one thing that's usually true: people never complain about having too much power, proper thermal and power management usually keeps that all under control. They always complain though if it's not powerful enough.Notmyusualid - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I have a use case for one of these...At home I have a Samsung 3D TV that I paid a fortune for, and other than the software / online side to the device, I'm very happy with. The issue is - after 4yrs, Samsung no longer updates their smart TV, and thus I cannot even finish a single episode of anything on iPlayer, without it rebooting. And the smart TV interface is painful to use.
I think this device would bridge the gap, and allow me to keep this TV another 4 years.
But that price...it won't convert well when it hits the UK shores...
felang - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Seems like a $50 Roku Stick might be just what you need.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I hear that a lot. People jumped on the 3D TV and smart TV fads which are both are rapidly deflating markets making them unprofitable to continue to support from an OEM perspective. You're probably better off using a Roku or some other similar set top box. A compute stick seems like overkill for your usage scenario.Notmyusualid - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Thanks for all your answers.However, I don't stream Hulu, or Netflix, but only from the BBCs iPlayer, in accordance with my non-license-paying laws.
But I DO use Youtube, and have hated most every linux interface I've seen, so I really Need / Want a Windows user environment.
At $200 this would be an insta-buy. At $300, I dunno, I guess I'd have to be stateside to really decide, but when it lands at 299 GBP, they can stuff it. (that is my price GUESS).
I'll certainly be adding it to my Ebay 2nd hand search, just in case a fool dumps one cheaply...
erple2 - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Sounds like a Chromecast might work, too. BBC suggests that it should just work if you use the iPlayer app on your Android or iPhone.JackNSally - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I currently have an Amazon Firestick.It works really good for Netflix, Hulu, etc.
You can also put Kodi on it. It's not the most polished interface and experience but it does work.
I think you can do more with it too, I just haven't figured it all out.
Gunbuster - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
My takeaway is that 2in1's have the potential to not suck if Intel would make Core-M pricing reasonable.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Yes, but this is intel we are talking about here.bill.rookard - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
If Zen comes through with good cores at low enough power usage, we might see that pricing adjust somewhat.andrewaggb - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
pretty much sums it up. The atoms are just not fast enough, I have a couple quad core atom devices and it's just slightly too slow. I have a core-m 5th gen laptop and it's usable. I still think it's actually just bordering on too slow, but for the most part I'm ok with it. I certainly wouldn't want anything slower than that.woggs - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
"keep it off till needed"Till means to turn over dirt.
"Drivers and BIOS updates are available for download [ ] on Intel's website."
Is there supposed to be a link in there?
ganeshts - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Thanks for the note. I have fixed the download link.As for 'till', the definition you provided is just one of the four possible meanings. Please refer: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/am...
woggs - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Heh... Oxford has given up...watzupken - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
This would have been a great compact HTPC for its size. However, I think it is very overpriced for its performance to be honest.fanofanand - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
So close. The waiting game will continue, I just want a device that can be used for streaming and surfing the web, with a few super basic (low settings) games my kids can play. I want that but at $200 or less. My wife's laptop would beat the crap out of this thing (I know, different form factor) for 25% less $. Intel needs a seismic shift in strategy, the days of 70%+ margins are over.tipoo - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I'm seeing a common trend with the Skull Candy NUC. The hardware is interesting enough for me to want to toy around with, but the pricing just pushes them over the interest range. It looks like Intel is making these to try to push their margins up rather than try to gain significant self-built hardware marketshare.
Actually, if partners keep screwing the pooch, they should pull a Surface (not the concept, but the idea of vertical integration) and make some great laptops and desktops.
jwcalla - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Just out of curiosity... are any of the reviews here at AT paid for by the product's company?jihe - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The Apple ones. Then again, given the fanboism of AT, they probably paid Apple double to review their products.ganeshts - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Nope. No review on AT has ever been paid for by anybody.Ryan Smith - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
No. That would be a terrible business strategy since it would undermine your trust in our reviews.We have run sponsored content in the past - which was clearly labeled - but that is always news/analysis and such; never reviews.
Otherwise I direct you to our About page section on sampling.
--
The majority of what we review is provided directly by the manufacturer of the product. The product samples are delivered to our reviewers with the expectations of us providing a fair, thorough review. There is never any implicit guarantee of positive or negative, just that the review will be done as well as we can.
In the early days, when we were a much smaller site, manufacturers would threaten to withhold future review samples in response to a negative review (not so blatantly as that of course). We have quietly lost and gained the support of manufacturers throughout the years based on reviews. I've personally had many arguments with manufacturers who dare attempt to either knowingly deceive our readers or use advertising dollars or product support to influence our reviews.
Today, we are large enough to avoid these petty discussions of withholding review samples. Most manufacturers know that one way or another we'll get our hands on a product for review and don't try to play these sorts of games. Rarely we are faced with a manufacturer or advertiser who is looking to influence our content. We have a firm internal policy in place to deliver honest, balanced reviews to the best of our ability - regardless of external pressures. Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, we have been around long enough and are large enough to avoid this being an issue in the vast majority of situations.
Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Huh... I may have use for a tiny, simple server at some point, and one of these would about fit the bill. Just need to add a USB Ethernet port and upgrade Windows 10 to Pro and it should work...bill.rookard - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
You might be better off getting some cheap hardware off eBay at this point until the pricing comes down. Pick up a Dell Optiplex SFF for $100ish (just got one for $90 myself), outfit it with a notebook drive for the OS and a big HDD for storage and run it with a Linux system with Samba. That would do the trick nicely.beginner99 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Even 64 GB storage is on the low side. Common. 128 Gb would add $5 max to the BOM. Sell it to me for $30 more and I would take it over 64 gb. NUC sounds like a better investment and more flexible.Realvn - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Ofcouse that core m series are the best perform stick, fastest at it size, best perform per watt, best...But the price too high, very high of it class, very high compare to any NUC at p/p
Sivar - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The use of a tiny fan concerns me. It's often the little fans that die young. Perhaps building the enclosure from (admittedly expensive) aluminum would be sufficient to allow for a solid state design?Meteor2 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
It only runs briefly, if at all.mostlyharmless - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Why 64-bit MS, with only 4GB RAM?The_Assimilator - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Because 32-bit is dead and needs to stay that way.harijan - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Contrary to some of these comments. I love these reviews Ganesh. I have a bay trail computestick, and it runs OK for what I do with it. I loaded it with ubuntu and have it running multiple lxc containers.I think I'll skip this generation, although I can't wait for next years model, hopefully with HDMI 2.0. Once they have that, I think the next Atom, or whatever Intel use in this segment, based model will be a no brainer in most HTPC situations.
Vaz - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Product photography seems to have hit rock bottom in anandtech reviews.tamalero - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
The cheer size of the power block kinda makes the stick size useless, doesnt it?xodusgenesis - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Can this handle software decode of H.265? Or does it stress the CPU too much?ganeshts - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
There is hybrid decoding for HEVC 8b - I expect it will work ok for 24p content, even 4K.However, 4Kp60 or HEVC 10b will be a no-go.
Kinematics - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
What about 10-bit h264?It's what's most disappointing in all this small form-factor reviews: At what point is this product *not* going to be useful to you? And all it ever does is cover stuff that I know already is going to work fine. Since I know that 10-bit won't be hardware accelerated (whereas everything that's tested is), it's impossible to even guess at how it compares in areas that you actually need a reviewer to look at.
DonMiguel85 - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I'm still waiting for that GTX 960 reviewnfriedly - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I have one of these and one of the m5 versions and I pretty much agree with Anandtech's conclusions. They're the first compute stick that feel "fast enough" for basic office/browsing/htpc tasks. But they're definitely a bit on the expensive side.From what I've seen elsewhere and my personal experience the m5 version is a little faster for bursty workloads, but about on par with the m3 for anything sustained. The graphics might be a bit more powerful, though. Probably not worth the price difference.
Also, on a different topic, Anandtech seriously needs to put some improvements into the commenting system. I had to get to page 4 just to find a single comment about the article... A way to collapse comment threads would probably be good enough, although voting or some kind of moderation might be even better.
lhorror - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
core m3 version on video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWcULkwryH4piasabird - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
I would like to see comparison of this to something like an STX system where you can use normal DDR4 Ram and a standard CPU, with an M.2 SSD drive, and also an ITX system. All this to determine if it is worth it and also what are the advantages to having a larger drive and more RAM.grand_puba - Friday, July 1, 2016 - link
This website is going from bad to worse. There are few reviews and at least half of them are about cases and shit like that. I am going to remove you from my bookmarks.okenny - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
True.what's with all the SSD reviews? I don't understand why SSDs are so interesting, an upgrade makes little or no difference to system performance unless you move from HDD to SSD or maybe from SATA to NVMe on PCIe or m.2. Don't get it.
okenny - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
hmmmm....no HDMI 2.0 at this price point, I'd buy something else like an nVidia Shield.Though I'd prefer Windows.
jakoh - Thursday, December 20, 2018 - link
How does this perform with 1080p Hevc?How is the H265 performance?
jakoh - Thursday, December 27, 2018 - link
Replying here, it’s remarkable at playing hevc content 1080p tested upto 2mbps. So happy with the performance. Thank you intel. It’s my dream media player.I am running Ubuntu 18. So easy to setup.
yeeeeman - Sunday, June 28, 2020 - link
Intel needs to make a lakefield version of this.