MeeGoPad Review - A full Intel Atom Bay Trail Windows 8.1 PC on a HDMI stick!

[froggyboy604]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60kCtcc8VbI

Windows PC's keep shrinking. We went from the pocketable Zotac PI320 to this one from MeeGoPad that is on a stick! Yes you don't need to mount it, just plug it in to a TV, attach power, and you now have a Windows 8 PC.
 
It has 32 gigs of storage and 2 gigs of RAM. It also has two USB ports (one OTG, the other a full USB host) as well as a MicroSD card slot for additional storage. Audio is passed through the HDMI plug.
 
My only gripe is that it's being distributed with an unlicensed version of Windows 8.1. The manufacturer, for some reason, didn't make the effort to get it certified with the Windows for Bing program. That means you'll have to pay almost double the cost of entry to get a fully licensed version of Windows to run on it.
 
Those issues aside it works quite well. It runs about 20% slower on the Octane benchmark as compared to other similarly equipped Bay Trail devices like the Zotac. Additionally I found it runs Minecraft at half the speed of the Zotac device. 
 
That said this is a pretty remarkable little PC that can run the full version of Windows and be plugged into an HDMI port. 

This looks like a nice small PC for web browsing, watching video, Office work, and playing games like Minecraft, Runescape, and console emulators of older consoles like the PS1-PS2, N64, SNES, Genesis, and Gameboy.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

very nice, though I wonder what RAM they use to get it into that small thing. I'm concerned that it don't come with official W8 os.

 

[froggyboy604]

It comes with 2GB of RAM, and the version of Windows is a trial of Windows 8.1, so you can decide to pay MS if you like Windows 8.1.

I bet it shouldn't be too hard to install Linux, Windows 7, and other OS if you decide not to buy Windows 8.1.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

Doesn't sound like you would get that kind of access to install other things on it.

 

[froggyboy604]

It does have a MicroSD slot, and USB port so if you can bootup this computer from a MicroSD card or USB flash drive, you maybe able to run other operating system like Linux, and older versions of Windows which is installed onto a MicroSD or USB flash drive.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

Well that all depends on what kind of access you can gain for that device, seems to me they might lock you out of boot loader.

 

[froggyboy604]

Well that all depends on what kind of access you can gain for that device, seems to me they might lock you out of boot loader.

This is a possibility of the boot loader being locked, but I bet the modding community and companies like XDA, and Cyanogenmod will find a way to root this device giving it access to the boot loader.

Locking the boot loader is not a good idea, and can cause modders, and techies to not buy this PC. I bet most of the people who buy this device will be techies, modders, geeks, hackers, and nerds since they read tech websites, and watch tech YouTube videos which review these types of devices.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

hmm true, when in doubt root it.