I wonder if these things could, conceptually, replace USB sticks. (I'm referring to the mini Android PCs that look like USB sticks)
You can get 'em pretty cheap these days - <$50 for 4-8GB storage.  A fair bit more than just a USB stick, but I'm sure these will fall in price.

From the ones I've looked at so far, the main plug is usually a HDMI plug, as opposed to USB.  IMO, it would be cool to have one where the main plug is USB, which the entire mini-PC is powered off, and a mini-HDMI port is what is used to connect it to a display, should you need one.
Another complexity I see is the boot up times for the mini-PC - USB sticks generally work as soon as you plug them in, whilst a mini-PC might have to boot before you get such access to it.
Perhaps some sort of hibernation state might solve this - when you unplug it from a USB port, the stick stores enough power to put the mini-PC into hibernation.  (if persistent memory ever comes out, that could also be a viable solution in the distant future)

When it's plugged into a desktop, since it could act as a virtual network interface over USB, display could be achieved with something like VNC, should you not want to connect a HDMI cable.
Not so sure about sound - perhaps you could have a headphone jack for that.  Or the mini-PC could perhaps act as an input sound device to be routed through the host.
VNC could take care of keyboard/mouse (k/m), though if not, I suppose you'd need to use a wireless k/m.  It would be cool if current k/ms could switch between wireless and wired modes - that is, they'd be wired, but you can switch them into wireless mode so that you can control devices like these, whilst still being powered off USB/PS2.

Something like this would be pretty cool to have.  Not only do you carry your own files with you, you could have a very portable OS and work environment (assuming you have the freedom of wiping the Android install and install your favourite Linux variant).
I've looked into doing this in the past, but unfortunately VirtualBox Portable often requires admin rights on the host Windows machine to work.  qemu works without admin rights, but is horribly slow without kernel assistance (which requires admin rights).
Having said that, I don't know whether the networking part can be done without admin rights on the host.


It would be interesting if an x86 CPU could fit into such a small package, but I don't see this happening any time soon, including the cost factor of x86 CPUs and me doubting that they could be powered entirely off USB.  Then again, Intel are heavily targeting the mobile sector at the moment, so this could be feasible in the near future.

Mini Android PCs already seem like a good replacement for cheap media players - they're smaller and possibly cheaper too, and have greater flexibility.

Anyone else interested in these?

http://dx.com/p/ug802-android-4-0-dual-c...4gb-153223



you mean like this one

Most are powered by usb Mainly and require hdmi for display
its just some tvs ulike mine don't have a usb port or it doesn't supply enough power.

The main factor of these which i like is media functionality
somme come with an extra usb for usb OTG

(01/06/2013 08:27 PM)squee666 Wrote:  http://dx.com/p/ug802-android-4-0-dual-c...4gb-153223



you mean like this one

Most are powered by usb Mainly and require hdmi for display

That looks like a HDMI plug.

There's also a port marked "DC 5V".  I dunno if it can be powered entirely off USB, but they do supply an external power cord.

With unneeded daemons removed from my nexus 4, I can boot from full power off to homescreen in 20 seconds.  With that, these little androids will probably boot as reasonably fast.  Definitely something interesting for such a low price.

(03/06/2013 06:38 PM)Gadget Wrote:  I just want something that plays all those formats with the capability of reading from another external drive plugged in.  Do these do this ?  I am going to have to look into these as a more cost efficient solution.

It should, if the device has OTG USB support.

Do be aware that the interface probably won't be as nice as a WDTV.