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If, for whatever reason, your current PC isn’t cutting it for you or you want to get someone an inexpensive computer as a gift, there’s a great option on the way. Jide Tech has introduced the Remix Mini through Kickstarter, a miniature Android computer that’ll put inexpensive computing power in a small form factor for those with thin budgets.
This thing looks no different than a bean, though much bigger and obviously unfit for consumption. Its exterior features a simple capacitive-touch power button for powering the PC on and off. There are also ports for power, ethernet, USB 2.0, HDMI, microSD and headphones.
And that’s all there is to it, really. Connect the Remix Mini to an external display and you’ll be greeted by an Android-powered operating system that’s been customized from the ground up to provide a very nice computing environment.
Remix OS places emphasis on resizable windows, a standard desktop, a dedicated file manager and full keyboard/mouse support. It’s not stuff that you couldn’t also get on an Android phone with some elbow grease and glue, but the custom OS looks like it was tailor made to provide a competent PC experience that pretty much anyone can get used to without having to learn new tricks.
Powering all of this is a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 64-bit chipset by AllWinner, as well as your choice of either 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, or 2GB of RAM and 16GB. It’ll also have Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11n WiFi for wireless data needs.
I haven’t even mentioned the best part of all this: the price tags. If you pledge through Kickstarter you can get yourself the 1GB or 2GB versions for $30 and $50, respectively. There’s also an early bird tier of $20 for 1GB and $40 for 2GB, though the the former of those options have been 100% claimed as of the time of this post. Those price tags obviously don’t include a monitor and any other peripherals you need, but those are cheap and easy enough to come by that it shouldn’t be an issue.
Either way, it doesn’t get any cheaper than this so be sure to give it some serious thought. The campaign has already surpassed its goal of $50,000 with a current balance of $217,000, and there are 44 days to go. If things go smoothly then the Remix Mini will be headed out to you by the end of October (though it is Kickstarter, so we’d suggest tacking a couple of months onto the end of that expectation just to be safe).
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