It’s up for preorder on Indiegogo starting at $155.
The absolute opposite to massive full-tower PCs are little PCs, similar to Intel’s NUC and Zotac’s scope of Zbox machines. They’re sufficiently little to fit on top of a desk, or in an amusement place, without standing out. At that point there’s the LarkBox, a PC that is so little you could pack it into your pocket or hold it in the palm of your hand, and it’s even fit for yielding at 4K.
This is the reason for the case that it is the “world’s smallest 4K mini PC,”as Chinese manufacturer Chuwi publicizes on the LarkBox’s Indiegogo page. It measures around 2.4 x 2.4 x 1.7 inches. It is an alternate structure factor than Intel’s Compute Stick, which estimates 4.06 x 1.46 x 0.47 inches and can likewise yield at 4K, so I won’t criticize the case.
The LarkBox is an interesting system powered by an Intel Celeron J4115 processor, 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 128GB of eMMC stockpiling. There’s additionally a M.2 opening underneath the hood to redesign the capacity with a greater and quicker SSD, whenever wanted.
Curiously, Intel doesn’t list the Celeron J4415 on its site, however it is a quad-core chip with a 1.8GHz base clock and 2.4GHz boost clock, and UHD 600 graphics.
Network is genuinely robust—the LarkBox brags a couple USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, a HDMI port, a 3.5mm sound jack, and a microSD card space. On the remote side, it likewise has installed Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5 availability.
Early Pricing on Indiegogo is set at $155, and clearly this will retail for $199 when it discharges in August. That puts it well above something like the Raspberry Pi, however is truly modest for a x86 PC.
“The Chuwi LarkBox would have been a great buy at $300, it is almost a must-have at $199. It is relatively speedy, extremely compact and surprisingly well designed. The only real issue is to find a use for it,” TechRadar wrote.
It will be interesting to see if this leads to more options in the diminutive space, particularly when Intel’s low-power Lakefield processors arrive.
Either way, the LarkBox is a new addition to Indiegogo. We’re always wary of crowdfunding projects, but given that some prototypes have already gone out, we’re cautiously optimistic these units will actually ship this summer.