I’m just going to put it out there. The near future for home PCs is going to be those that hook directly into your TV. Mark my words. Whether that’s stick PCs or micro towers, you’re going to see less and less laptops around the house, and desktops and towers in the home office will prove virtually extinct.
Azulle, a company specializing in mini PCs and PC sticks, is betting on this notion, and the Azulle Byte Plus is their latest product, a fully functional PC with a tiny footprint and a sales price well under $200.
Azulle Byte Plus Features
The Azulle Byte Plus is a big boy PC, offering a ton in a tiny package. It’s only 2 lbs and measures a small 8″ x 6″ x 3″. It’s powered by a 64-bit Quad-Core Intel® CherryTrail™ T3 Z8300 Quad-Core, 1.44 GHz (up to 1.84 GHz) processor and can be connected to any TV or monitor with an HDMI or VGA port. Obviously, the benefit of connecting to a TV is the fact that you can stream stuff like YouTube and Netflix.
The bigger selling point here, though, is that the Byte Plus is preloaded with the full version of Windows 10, and comes equipped with either 2 or 4 GB of DDR3L RAM, 32 GB of storage, dual band Wi-Fi wireless network adapter, which features both a 2.4 GHz and a 5.0 GHz band, Bluetooth, an ethernet port and a lot of additional features. The unit has a broadband antenna, which lends itself to a very strong signal, and having dual band capability allows for a better connection, which provides higher speed with less interference.
While these above specs don’t offer you the power to run really robust software for things such as graphic design or hardcore gaming, the Byte Plus is more than enough to handle literally any other application thrown at it. And because of its size, you can take it with you on the road, provided you tote along with it a keyboard and mouse.
Installation and Testing
The Azulle Byte Plus is literally plug and play. We were up and running in seconds. Simply plug it in, attach the unit to the TV with an HDMI cable, push the power button, and the fast boot up time initiates in less than 5 seconds. Pretty damn easy. Your bluetooth keyboard is equally easy to connect, thanks to the 3 USB ports on the back of the unit (2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0).
The processing speed of the Byte Plus is surprisingly speedy, and performance when running multiple applications or having many internet tabs open is very strong. In short, the onboard RAM gives you a lot of processing power, especially for the price. It’s Fast! You could literally replace your desktop computer with the Byte Plus, and who wouldn’t love a large screen to view your applications, especially if you have a 50″ smart TV.
We also loaded Skype, iTunes and a printer driver, and the Byte Plus worked like a champ. Of course you’re going to get a little better processing performance with the 4GB version, but either model will handle most of your application needs without a problem. And while we mentioned that it’s not a hardcore gaming PC, it can handle most PC games with ease.
One more thing to mention: The Byte Plus is fanless, thanks to the Cherry Trail processor, so the unit makes literally no noise, keeps cool all by itself, and remains stable all day long.
The only downside of the Azulle Byte Plus, and it’s a very minor one, is its small 32 GB of storage. But there’s an easy solution for that. Because the Azulle provides plenty of ports on the back, you can connect an external HDD for additional storage.
Here are the formal specs:
- Windows 10®
- 2GB RAM DDR3L – 4GB RAM DDR3L
- 32GB storage
- USB 3.0 (2), USB 2.0 (1)
- VGA Port
- Microphone Support
- USB mouse wired & wireless support
- USB keyboard wired & wireless support
- 10/100/1000M RJ45 Ethernet
- Dual Band Wi-Fi (2.4G / 5G Dual Band), Bluetooth 4.0
- Intel® CherryTrail™ T3 Z8300 Quad-Core, 1.44 GHz (up to 1.84 GHz)
Bottom Line
We may have found the best Mini PC on the market today. The Azulle Byte Plus offers you so much in such a small footprint. Its quad-core Cherry Trail processor allows you to multi-task, just like you would with a full desktop PC. It has multiple ports and many connection options, both VGA and HDMI, and it comes with full Windows 10. It’s best suited for the home and maybe a college student’s PC, but honestly, we’ve been using one of these to run our entire business. In fact, we’re writing this review on the Azulle as we speak.
We highly endorse the Byte Plus, and you can purchase the new Azulle Byte Plus Mini PC for $169.99 (2GB) and $189.99 (4GB) Click Here.
