today’s smartphones are essentially pocket-size PC and as such there are no reasons why a huge ass HDTV sets can’t be a PC too. well, in fact, it can – if you plug this Mini Bay Trailer PC manufactured by China-based Shenzhen APEC Electronic into your HDTV’s HDMI port. it may look like a USB flash drive or even a Chromecast-like device, but this little guy has the guts of a full fledge x86 PC and it cost only $110. packed within its nondescript thumb drive-like enclosure is an Intel quad-core Bay Trail processor with integrated graphics and backed by 1GB of RAM. it has its own onboard storage too, albeit just 16GB, but that’s further expandable via the microSD expansion slot. the device supports Intel Burst Technology with 2MB of L2 Cache and also boast built-in sound codec chip along with the usual suspects of connectivity including the obvious HDMI, a pair of micro USB ports, Bluetooth 4.0 technology and 802.11n wireless.
oddly, the product images appear to be showing a full size USB port, but that wasn’t listed on its spec list. perhaps, the folks missed out on this? on our part, we are guessing the standard size USB is probably for powering the device when using with a non-HDMI equipped display, which explains its exclusion. however, we might be wrong. this mini PC is offered with a choice of either an Atom Z3735F (32-bit) or Z3735G (64-bit) processors, clocking at 1.33GHz with a 1.83GHz burst frequency. the “F” model gets 2GB RAM though. also, it appears to have a choice of 32GB. priced at $110 a pop, which clearly is the base price, the Mini Bay Trailer PC (model number APM-D01) is not preloaded with any OS, so you are free to install the OS of your choice, be it Windows, Linux or Android OS. if you think today’s smart TV ain’t capable enough or simply wants to turn a dumb HDTV into a more useful one, a stick form factor PC might just be the way to go. though it will no doubt require some tinkering on the software end, which obviously is not for novices.
AliExpress via Geek
