This PC is the size of a damn credit card
What is this, a computer for ants?
I'm still impressed by the power in the diminutive Raspberry Pi, a flexible hobbyist PC that can be used to run emulators or a home server or other creative projects. But the Raspberry Pi looks practically gargantuan next to the Pico PI225-GK, which I checked out at Zotac's booth at Computex 2018. This is actually the second generation of the mini PC, which is about the dimensions of a half dozen credit cards stacked together. It's a PC that could easily fit inside a money clip.
Of course, small computers are practically everywhere these days, in our refrigerators and gaming mice and wherever else we think to put them. But I was impressed by how much of a genuine PC the Pico is. It runs Windows 10, has two USB-C ports for connecting accessories and outputting video. It's clocked at 1.1 GHz with a dual-core Intel N4000 processor, which can turbo up to 2.6 GHz. There's 4GB of RAM in here. 32GB of memory. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a card reader are built in, and it runs off micro-USB for power.
The Intel UHD 600 graphics built into the CPU are not built for gaming; this system is really envisioned as the driver for advertising displays. But if you don't mind playing lightweight games, or 3D games from the early 2000s, you really could have a PC that fits in your pocket. I mean, it'll definitely run Doom.
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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.
When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).
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