chromebit
Latest
ASUS Chromebit review: Turn any display into a Chrome OS machine
If you've got some spare time, search for the words "Android dongle" on eBay -- your screen will be filled with little, Android-powered HDMI doodads that purport to make your dumb TV smart. But what about Chrome OS, Google's other operating system? For years, it lived most prominently on notebooks, but the new $85 Chromebit from ASUS is Google's attempt to give Chrome OS even more of a life beyond the laptop. Got a spare monitor with an HDMI-in port? Or an HDTV that could stand to be smarter? Just pop in the Chromebit and voilà: Your dumb display is now a Chrome OS computer. It's not that powerful, and it's far from perfect, but the Chromebit is just cheap and just good enough to find a home in classrooms and tinkerers' dens.
Google puts Chrome OS on your TV with its own HDMI stick
Google has unveiled a whole new type of Chrome device, and it's one that can fit in your pocket. It's called the Chromebit, and it's essentially a Chromebook crammed in a dongle. This tiny little package contains a Rockchip 3288 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of eMMC memory, a USB 2.0 port, WiFi 802.11 ac support, Bluetooth 4.0, a Smart Ready controller and an ARM Mali 760 quad-core GPU. Just like Intel's Compute Stick, all you have to do to get the Chromebit working is to attach it to any display with a HDMI port, and voila, you've turned it into a computer. Unlike the Intel stick though, the Chromebit's HDMI end actually swivels around so that the dongle doesn't stick out in an unsightly way behind a monitor or TV. As for battery life, well, Google says it doesn't really know that just yet as the product is still in testing. Google promises that the Chromebit -- the first is made by ASUS -- will retail for less than $100. It'll be available in either silver, blue or orange and will be out later this summer.
