System on a chip - a brief introduction, overview and nerd-moment

[Daddydoink]

So, I mentioned in this topic about System-on-a-Chip - SoC for short.  This morning Amazon are advertising one such system, on a stick - link here - for £50.  So whats the point?

Home:

Smart TV on even the oldest of recent newish not-so-old TVs.  Rather than taking a firestick, netflix, nowTV or AppleTV around to your mates, you can take them all in one round and just plug this in the back.  Advantages?  Youtube will work in the browser, you can also use the web at the same time and it is so much cooler to be able to do that without having to mess about with log in details etc. Just watch the number of IP limits etc...

Work:

Presentation? No problem.  Hot desking? No issue.  Working from home? Excellent.  The idea is that you can run basic applications like Word, Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint to deliver your work through a small stick, instead of an expensive laptop... 

So - my question - does this appeal?  Or is the the Newton PDA all over again? 

[viridis]

But that's not what it is.
System on a chip is a combined APU comprising CPU, GPU, RAM and other features on one die of silicon.

The items you refer to are known as Stick PC's.

Still not sure about the long term viability for them yet tbh

[Daddydoink]

Essentially they're moving to the same thing - Stick Systems are considered as part of the family...  

Either way - its quite significant - with cheap FireSticks competing with what is in essence a full PC, on a stick or in a box behind a screen... do we think its viable or not?

[Cleoriff]

Too much out of my personal comfort zone this...I even had to go and look up Newtons PDA....Ahh well...:smileysad:

[jonsie]

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@Cleoriff wrote:

Too much out of my personal comfort zone this...I even had to go and look up Newtons PDA....Ahh well...:smileysad:

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I know the feeling....

[viridis]

Stick systems are not part of the system on chip family at all, in fact stock systems USE system on chip as part of its structure of many parts on complex PCB.
I understand where you're coming from but they are completely separate enities.
One being a component, the other being a finished product using said component as part of its manufacture.
The stick pc is closer to a chromecast.

[Toby]

What's your take on it @Daddydoink?

[Anonymous]

Id listen to this man @viridis he seems to know about it