Fancy a Windows 8 PC on a stick? You can have one today for just $100

By Adrian Diaconescu Published November 25, 2014

Intel wants to challenge Amazon and Google with its device-on-a-stick capable of serious computing. But why wait until Santa Clara green-lights and outs the thumb-sized PC it recently teased? Folks looking to live on the bleeding edge of tech innovation can board the Windows PC-on-a-stick bandwagon early.

An obscure Chinese manufacturer has a teeny-tiny computer up for grabs today, which DealExtreme offers to ship for free. The stick is called MeegoPad T01. It appears that “MeegoPad” is the brand, while T01 is the model name. The company also sells a Windows tablet called the F10.

Recommended Videos

The T01 lets owners switch between Android 4.4 and Windows 8. If the specifications listed on DX.com are legit, the MeegoPad could well let you surf the web without a hitch, and even play HD video content. Owners could use the Android interface for media content and Windows for productivity.

An Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor is found under T01’s hood. It’s joined by two gigabytes of RAM and integrated Intel HD graphics. The HDMI connector is the magic portal to easy TV or monitor use, but incredibly enough, the restricted square footage of the stick PC still allows it to accommodate an extra USB 2.0 and micro USB port.

You also get Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and either 16 or 32GB internal storage, with a microSD card slot facilitating up to 64GBs of space. Not enough room to hoard your precious data? You can also hook an external HDD of up to 1TB to the system via USB.

We’ve saved the best for last, as you probably figured already. The 4.33 x 1.54 x 0.39 inches measurements of the MeegoPad T01 make even the newest, smallest Zotac mini PC look like a freakish giant in comparison. An expensive freakish giant too, as the MeegoPad starts at half of Zbox PI320 Pico’s price; $100 with 16GB storage, and $110 in a 32GB configuration. We recommend the larger of the two, as Windows 8 will fill the majority of the 16GB stick’s storage from the factory.

Should you really buy a no-name stick PC? That depends on your tolerance for risk. Digital Trends has tested off-brand Android stick PCs before and found they generally do what they claim but often feel cheap and have software quirks (in Android, at least). You shouldn’t expect the MeegoPad T01 to serve as your primary PC, but it could be fun to experiment with.

Adrian Diaconescu

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Adrian is a mobile aficionado since the days of the Nokia 3310, and a PC enthusiast since Windows 98. Later, he discovered…

Topics

Computing

As AI turbocharges digital abuse, UK agencies urge parents to limit who sees kids’ photos online

The National Crime Agency and Internet Watch Foundation are asking parents to tighten privacy settings as AI-generated abuse material rises.

Parents who post pictures of their kids online are being told to rethink the habit. The UK's National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation have issued new guidance urging families to lock down their social media accounts, warning that publicly shared photos are increasingly being pulled and altered by AI tools to create child sexual abuse material.

The two organizations say most parents have no idea this is happening. Criminals no longer need to contact a child directly to generate such material. They can scrape an ordinary photo and run it through widely available nudify apps.

Computing

I used ASUS’ dual-screen laptop as a portable creative station, and my desk PC started collecting dust

The Zenbook Duo might be the creator setup I wanted in college

Computer Hardware, Electronics, Hardware

With laptops, brands are constantly in a balancing act between portability and workspace productivity. The ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8407AA tries to dodge that choice with a design that brings a whole setup in a compact form factor.

I used the Zenbook Duo as a creative machine, mainly with design apps, illustration work, writing, and multitasking. The model I tried runs on Intel’s Core Ultra 7 355, paired with 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. That gives it enough horsepower to handle Photoshop and Animate, for sketches and animations, and a lot more without breaking a sweat.

Computing

macOS clipboard app Maccy has a fake out there stealing passwords

PamStealer malware is disguising itself as Maccy to target Mac users

Depicting of the Maccy clipboard app for macOS on a laptop with letters inb the background.

A fake version of Maccy, a popular clipboard manager for macOS, is being used to deliver a newly discovered Mac malware strain called PamStealer. Researchers at Jamf say the malware impersonates the real open-source app, but its actual purpose is to steal data and capture a victim’s login password.

PamStealer arrives as a disk image containing an AppleScript file that impersonates Maccy. Once the user opens that file, macOS launches it in Script Editor, where the on-screen instructions tell them to press Command-R. To someone expecting a normal app installer, that may look like an odd setup step. In reality, that action runs hidden malware code and starts the attack.