And the race is on.
This week, Intel finally released its sort-of hotly anticipated answer to media streaming devices that can fit on a keychain, like Google’s Chromecast and the Amazon Fire TV.
Related: Streaming stick swordfight! Chromecast vs. Roku Streaming Stick vs. Amazon Fire TV Stick
Unlike those two devices however, the Intel Compute Stick is actually a fully operational Windows PC crammed onto something the size of a thumb drive, and powered by 2GB of RAM with a 1.8Ghz Atom Bay Trail Z3735F processor.
But, despite being almost universally panned by the press, that hasn’t stopped imitators and copycats from crawling out of the woodwork with their own answer to a product which no one is even sure they might need just yet.
Related: Intel Compute Stick Review
According to a newly posted product page on the website StickPCStore.com, the Innovoteck T-0264W is a stick PC which shares an almost identical spec sheet with the Compute Stick, save for the addition of an extra USB 2.0 slot, twice the available storage space (64GB opposed to Intel’s 32), and a jack for audio out.
The company (who we’ve never heard of either) says we should expect the T-0264W to start shipping worldwide sometime in May of this year, for nearly twice the price of what we’d pay for an Intel at $260 retail.
That’s right, for just the price of an entire Chromebook that has its own keyboard and everything, you can be the proud owner of a computer on a stick which doesn’t come included with a display, a mouse, or even enough memory to handle more than a few web browsing tabs at once.
Which begs the question: If these new stick PCs aren’t that powerful and three times the price of their closest competitors, who’s really going to need one of these things in the first place?
Regardless, the T-0264W will also feature an 802.11 b/g/n adapter to handle wireless Internet access, as well as Bluetooth 4.0 so you can connect any extra peripherals over the air.
