Android Mini PC
Last month I read an article on ArsTechnica about a small Android PC at 74$ and decided to give it a try. I received it yesterday and I am very impressed by the device. The small computer ships with a transformer, a mini-2-standard USB adapter, an HDMI cable and a mini-2-standard USB cable. You can connect the computer into any TV or monitor with an HDMI input port. I plugged mine into an old TV I had in my junk and connected a wireless keyboard and mouse into it.
The device is built on top of a 1.5GHz ARM processor with 1Gb of flash storage and a built-in 802.11 wireless adapter. You can extend the storage with a microSD memory card. It comes pre-installed with Android 4.0 and a couple of standard Android applications like Youtube, GMail and, of course, a web browser.
Once connected to my home WiFi network I started playing around with the device. All the user interfaces are the same as a standard Android 4.0 phone or tablet. The web browser is the default Android browser. I configured my GMail, Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail accounts with no problems. For some reason I have not been able to connect to my YouTube account. I’ll give it an other try later.
I then went to the Google Play store to download more apps. It seems that the store recognize the Android Mini PC s a tablet PC so not all phone applications are available for download. I started by downloading the TED and Netflix applications so I can convert my old TV into a modern “intelligent” TV. Both applications worked like a charm. Since “intelligent” TVs are usually sold an extra 700$, at 74$ the device was already paying for itself.
In conclusion, if you want to add web capabilities to your actual TV, the Android Mini PC combined to a wireless keyboard and mouse is a good candidate! You want one? You can now find it under 70$ on AliExpress by searching for “Android Mini PC” with the Free Shipping option selected.
2 Responses to “Android Mini PC”
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the “old” tv had an hdmi input?
or did you go through a usb to vga adapter like a displaylink?
did the OS already have flash video or did you have to install?
sounds interesting
Thanks for your message. Well, the TV is not that old but it is one of the first wide screen tv something like height years ago. I had to change it when we switched to digital HD signal … I don’t want to pay for cable TV and this TV had only an analog tuner. :)
For YouTube and TED I am using Android applications available from the Google Play store for free. Flash is available for Android but Adobe announced it will not be supported anymore so I try to avoid using It.