iBall Splendo (PC on Stick) Review

The idea of making your TV smart, has always been an attractive point. Not just because they hear about it all the time, many of us would want to consume bit of internet, specially media, on our TV to at least get away from Laptops and Desktops. Devices like PC on Stick, Chromecast and Teewe are few such devices which lets you do it.

Today we are looking at iBall Splendo, PC on Stick device which makes your TV smart using power of Windows 10. You can plug and play anything or get online and experience it.  It is one stop solution for everything you would want to do on a smart TV, and with multiple accounts on Windows, it gets personal as well.

Build, Design & Specifications:

iBall Splendo has a sleek design. Rectangular, Piano finish, fits your hand and gets around TV both on side and rear easily. While it may look plastic, it feels sturdy and will survive drops easily if you manage to. Still don’t take a lot of risk. Hook it to your TV, connect the wires and let it stay.

Splendo is powered by Intel Atom Quad core processor clocked at 1.83 Ghz. It includes 2 GB RAM along with 32 GB inbuilt storage ( 23 GB approx. usable). If you need more space, you can insert a microSD card, USB drive, and if all the ports are engaged, use the OTG cable.  For connectivity, it supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n standard and come with Bluetooth 4.0.  The bundled keyboard and mouse connect with a wireless receiver that occupies one of the USB slots.

Setting it up with TV is easy, though you will end up with wires around, and sometimes too close with TV. Once connected to TV over HDMI port, you will need to plugin the microUSB charger. Hit the tiny power button and you are done. This is the say part.

The tough part is when you need to put in a Micro SD card or a USB drive to it. You will have to take it out and insert it mostly because you usually don’t have enough space  behind your TV to get it done. As it support OTG, I will suggest to grab a long length cable so it is easy to hook into a USB drive without going behind the TV.

Upgradable to Windows 10:

It comes preloaded with Windows 8.1 which can be upgraded to Windows 10 easily. Either you an download the ISO or go through the process of Windows 10 App automated installation. It works, but it’s slow.

Performance & Day to Day usage Experience:

Keeping in mind the specs you have, Splendo or any PC on Stick devices is addressed to particular, and very small segment. Few I can think of are:

• Browsing on the couch. You don’t want to invest in a Smart TV, you get this.
• Those who would like to have casual and rather lighter alternative to carrying laptop.
• You want to help your kid learn using a PC without handing over your own personal computer.
• Those who cannot afford to have a full blown PC, but want to have something minimal to get things done.
• SMBs where buying and maintaining a projector is a difficult job, but managing a TV is easy. You can have a PC on stick connected to TV and let everybody run the Office presentations, and stuff similar to that.

All this comes at a price less than Rs 10,000, which wasn’t possible if you would have thought about it a year ago. The idea of PC on Stick is gaining momentum, and could be an ideal solution for many like I mentioned above.

All this points to one thing. You aren’t expected to get into hard-core gaming or heavy-duty stuff on this pc.  Now let me break down my usage to help you understand different scenarios:

Offline / Online  Media Consumption:

When it came to media consumption, the Windows advantage is clearly there. You can play all kind of videos by downloading third part apps if any of it fails. You have access to store which gets you new media players and streaming apps for media consumption.

I tried both 720P and 1080P videos, but the latter gave me hiccups even with media players like VLC.  When it comes to media streaming, YouTube worked well on streaming 1080P videos as well.  This concludes that if you are playing local media, stick to 720P while Online Streaming just works fine. If your TV supports FULL HD or at least HD, its going to be a great experience.

Browsing & Document Editing

Windows 10 comes with Edge Browser, which is not only different from Internet Explorer, it has been built from scratch. The overall experience of browsing different website is smooth. You also have option to install third part browsers just like you did on PC. When I tried Chrome on this, it was bit heavy on this system, but still ok.

Document editing worked like a charm here. I used the Online Version of Office 365 and OneDrive. It sometimes used to get slow, but I guess the hardware is not just enough sometimes.

Here is a pro-tip for document editing and browsing. I did not realise it in start, and it annoyed me all the time in both these scenarios. Surfing and Document editing from a distance with you watch TV is not an easy job. The text looks small and so do the icons and tiles. So make them bigger:

• Right click on desktop and select display.
• This will open an option which allows you to increase size of everything on Windows. 150% should get you the job done on a FULL HD TV.
• Also you may have to change Aspect Ration of TV so the ends are not cut off.

Those who say, Windows 10 doesn’t seem to be optimised for TV usage didn’t really check these options.

Compared to Chromecast & Tewee

There is a difference in pricing between them, but I taking them into account just to give you can idea. Both Chromecast and Tewee are built for media consumption as primary goal. You can stream anything on your phone or from Youtube to your TV.

While devices like Splendo are here to deliver a PC experience, which also includes Document Editing, Browsing, using Apps and Software if you wish to. Connect a Webcam and it all set for Skype or Video chat of your choice.

Drawbacks of iBall Splendo

WiFi Issues:

When I started setting it up for the first time, I had major trouble connecting with two of my routers. At first they never connected, and when the did, the internet never worked.  The only way to connect to WiFi was using software like Connectify which enabled virtual WIFI adapter on Windows.

Later after updating and upgrading to Windows 10, the issue resolved partially and it was able to connect to the routers. However, this still did not work as smoothly as expected.  After digging up a bit, I found that the processor has Bluetooth and WiFi adapter on the same chip, and multitasking is a problem. The issues were there even with Intel’s Compute Stick.

Power Button:

Splendid comes with a power button which is very small. The device will not turn on, when you switch to HDMI mode. You will need to manually turn it on. Doing this is painful because the device is either behind or on side of the TV, and looking for the button without your eyes on it is not easy. Most of the time I had to literally get behind the TV or pull the TV outwards to do it.  I really wish, there was way to turn it on using Keyboard or mouse.

Heating :

The device is small, and if you get into heavy-duty work or stream movies or media file for very long period like 6 to 8 hours which could be as good as watching two hollywood movies, it gets heated up. It gives you an idea on how long you push the device for heavy-duty work which IMO is decent.

What’s in the HUGE Box :

• Wireless mouse and keyboard with USB Receiver.
• HDMI Cord with USB Wall adapter.
• USB extender.
• Power Cable with Micro USB charging.
• Splendo ( PC on Stick) which has a piano finish, looks and feels sturdy.

Verdict:

iBall Splendo costs Rs 8,999 which is decent keeping in mind that you get a Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse.  If you are looking for using your TV for casual usage, like browsing, media consumption and apps like Facebook and Twitter, this is a sweet deal. You can buy iBall Splendo from Amazon.

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