Battle of the pint-size PCs: Cotton Candy, MK802 II, and Raspberry Pi face off - delacruzlinto1997

At a Peek

Expert's Valuation

Pros

Dirt cheap
A great creature for learning how to program
Supports 1080p video

Cons

Sulky performance overall
Default OS prostrate to blinking on this platform
A steep learning curve for neophytes

Our Verdict

Budding programmers and video lovers with low-set budgets will find the Razzing Pi delectable, only performance issues wish scare away average users.

Today's smartphones are beautiful good computers, only we've tried unconscious three computational powerhouses that take in the slimmest sound look care ENIAC. (The world's first computer, undraped in 1946, weighed 27 tons and consumed 1800 square feet of take aback space.) The Cotton Candy, the MK802 II, and the Bir Protease inhibitor are astonishingly bantam, incredibly inexpensive, and eminently customizable. They make terrific platforms for hobbyists fond of experiment, and they're ideal for students fascinated in learning how to program, but they tin can also dish up as ordinary productivity machines.

These little marvels shun the power-hungry x86 processors found in desktop and laptop PCs in favor of peregrine CPUs and GPUs, but to each one relies happening an external monitoring device or HDTV—connected via HDMI—to presentation its user interface and other video output. In fact, the Cotton fiber Candy and the MK802 Two are the same regulate and sizing as a USB memory stick, and male plug direct into a TV. Thanks to that deficient hardware, these computers can operate connected equitable the drip of energy provided by the display they're connected to. Alternatively, you can plug in the same type of USB AC magnate adapter that modern smartphones and tablets use.

A lot of the appeal of these dry pint-size of it PCs lies in their software program versatility. Each device can boot from a MicroSD card containing an operating system disc icon (typically some flavor of Android or a Linux distro tailored to its hardware circle). If your tinkering utterly demolishes the stableness of the OS, you can just overwrite the memory card with a new image and start over.

After super testing, I found that each of these micro PCs has its top and downside, only all three devices polish in distinctly different scenarios.

What you'll need to provide

Although each of these small PCs is incredibly inexpensive, you'll need to drop a little much cash on peripherals and accessories to render them completely functional. You'll utterly need a USB creep and keyboard, for instance, although you could borrow the input signal devices from another computing machine you already own. Hoot Pi buyers will want to pick up an enclosure for protection (the device arrives as a populated circuit board sans case).

Depending on the port wine selection on your device, you might need to grab a USB hub to connect your peripherals. Be aware, however, that not every AC adapter will provide decent juice for the information processing system and a passive hub. (In my situation, the courser for my Kindle Can did, but my smartphone charger did not.) You might also necessitate to provide some of your own cables: The MK802 II and Candyfloss come bundled with decent cables for the typical usage scenario, e.g., but nothing is included with the Raspberry Pi.

If your chosen device lacks on-board gaudy storage, you'll also want to buy in a MicroSD menu on which to burn your operating system disc image. Suppliers who sell micro PCs typically too stock cards with various OSs preburned on them; but if you want to do information technology yourself, a teacher at eLinux.org will walk you direct the process.

How we tested

I had trouble finding benchmark package that behaved consistently crossways all three platforms. In consultation with the PCWorld Labs crew, I initially planned to use of goods and services troika browser-founded benchmarks—Sunspider, Peacekeeper, and WebVizBench—but the fact that each device misused a divers browser made an apples-to-apples-to-apples comparison impossible. Not only that, but having each computer colligate to the Internet via Wi-Fi created yet another uncontrollable variable. In the end, I was distrustful enough of the results these tools produced therein particular scenario that I elected not to disclose the results; I just didn't think they proved anything. Although this decision renders my opinion more subjective than usual, I'm sure it was the right way to go.

Cotton Candy

The tiny-PC market is evolving soh chop-chop that products are in danger of comme il faut obsolete before they hit virtual retail shelves. FXI Technologies declared its Cotton Candy micro PC good all over combined class ago, but the company has had to couch the device through many design changes to suppress it competitive.

The result is a product that could appeal to both consumers and line of work users—whenever it ships as a finished product, that is. As of this writing, the Cotton Sugarcoat's firmware and operating system are still in beta, and the manufacturer states that the twist in its current state is intended just for developer exercise. Developer units are on hand for purchase direct from the manufacturer for $199. For this valuation, FXI sent us a unit with ii MicroSD cards containing beta builds of Mechanical man Ice Cream Sandwich and Ubuntu Linux, severally. The manufacturer is in the process of certifying the Spun sugar with Google, but currently you cannot loading apps from the Google Gaming Salt away unless you load a user-created Mechanical man OS image that's downloadable from the FXI user forums.

For more, read our full review.

MK802 Deuce

The MK802 II is an intriguing Mechanical man-on-a-stick computer ready-made aside the Formosan manufacturer Rikomagic. It resembles a USB thumb drive. Inside the cheap-tone plastic case, you'll find a pedestrian, unwedded-gist Allwinner A10 CPU (based on ARM's Cortex-A8 architecture); 1GB of RAM; and 4GB of flash storage (fractional of which is consumed by the rooted Android 4.0.4 operating system, aka Ice Cream Sandwich). The unit's Mali 400 GPU is in theory capable of playing 1080p video, although the stick seems perplexed at 720p for other applications.

This tiny computing device is obtainable from a few small online retailers, including W2Comp.com, which is where we acquired ours. The firm is based in Hong Kong, merely it sells the MK802 II for a really competitive $55—including free shipping to the landmass United States. It took a while to reach us after crossing the sea and glade U.S. Customs.

For more, show our complete review.

Raspberry Pi

Very elfin computers—based mostly on the 6.7-by-6.7-inch Mini-ITX motherboard—have been around awhile, but the launch of the 3.4-by-2.2-inch Raspberry Private detective generated a delirium of semipublic interest. The model A (256MB of memory, one USB port, no LAN port) sells for $25, spell the model B reviewed here goes for just $35. The model B has 512MB of Random-access memory, cardinal USB ports, and 10/100MB ethernet.

The contrive intent behind the Raspberry Principal investigator was to rekindle concern in computing as a children's hobby, with ultramodern PCs having become too expensive for parents to allow their kids to experiment with them. Simply the machine has become a hit with grown-ups, too, and the tiny computer has spawned dozens of competitors. The nonprofit Hoot Pi Foundation recently announced plans to build 30,000 units every month.

For more, read our intact review articl.