Back in the day, desktop PCs used to rule office and work areas at home. Now that desktop PC sales are in decline even with the introduction of Windows 10, the desktop category needs a little innovation to give it more push.
That little innovation has come, and indeed, it's both "little" and "innovative." According to BGR, projector company InFocus has released its new highly-portable PC named the “Kangaroo.” It's even sold for the low price of $99.
"Innovative solutions such as the InFocus Kangaroo built on Windows 10 delivers great flexibility at a reasonable price, helping customers to be even more productive while on the go" Peter Han, Vice President of Worldwide OEM Marketing, Microsoft Corp, said in a press release.
The Kangaroo is really highly-portable: weighing only 200g and measuring 124mm tall, 80.5mm wide, and 12.9mm thick, this little nifty device fits into your jacket or shirt pocket, making it the world's smallest portable desktop PC. The tech news outlet adds that it's even smaller than some phablets in the market today.
The Kangaroo comes with a removable base unit (Venture Beat calls it the standalone Kangaroo Dock) that has an HDMI port, two USB ports, and a DC power port that's used to supply power to the device. This dock is small too: it's only 46.9mm tall.
According to VB, the Kangaroo is a real PC. Connect it to a screen via HDMI, add in a mouse and a keyboard, and you're ready to use it as a full-pledged desktop.
It's powered by an Intel CherryTrail (Atom Z8500) SoC that clocked at 2.24GHz, and 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM. It has 32GB of eMMC storage, expandable to 128GB via microSDXC support.
Although it has no ethernet port, the Kangaroo has Wi-Fi connection. Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity also allows the use of bluetooth keyboards and mice, which makes it convenient and clutter-free. Only two cables are needed to use the Kangaroo: an HDMI cable to connect to a display, and the power cord.
Better than having just a starter version of sorts, the Kangaroo comes with Windows 10 Home, which is already good for web browsing, streaming, office work, and other common tasks. And with a built-in fingerprint scanner onboard the small machine, protecting your files is easy and more secure compared to using a password.
The Kangaroo also works with iPads, thanks to InFocus' OS Linx software.
"We wanted to create something that is incredibly affordable, portable and allows you to access Windows 10 and all of your files – from work to media - on any device," said Lawrence Yen, director of Kangaroo product marketing.
The Kangaroo is available for $99 at Newegg.
