Endless Mini review: A low-cost desktop that's useful even without the Internet

The promise of a computer for any budget, for anyone in the world, has been tried before to limited effect. The One Laptop Per Child initiative, launched to great fanfare in 2005, showed the difficulty in creating a low-cost PC for the developing world. One of the major limitations is the availability of reliable Internet access to access information and applications. That's something many of us are used to, but not everyone can take for granted.

Endless Mini

The Good

The Endless Mini has a great design for such an inexpensive desktop computer. It comes preloaded with educational content, plus basic productivity and entertainment apps, so it's ready to use out of the box.

The Bad

It can be painfully slow compared to even the least expensive PCs. Limited expansion, and installing new apps on the Linux OS is difficult.

The Bottom Line

The Endless Mini aims to be an affordable entry level desktop for the developing world, but its most original idea is to preload a ton of educational content so that it works even when there's no internet connection available.

The Endless Mini is a microdesktop intended for developing markets that combines a surprisingly sophisticated design and functional but rock-bottom specs with a wealth of preloaded content, much if it educational. That makes the Endless Mini a rare breed -- a computer that still offers wide functionality even without Internet access.

Starting at $79 in the US (approximately £54 or AU$110), the base model Endless Mini runs an ARM Cortex A5 CPU from Amlogic, with 1GB of RAM and 24GB of solid-state storage. We tested the step-up $99 model, which moves to 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, and more importantly, adds a Wi-Fi antenna and Bluetooth (the lower-end model is Ethernet only). Both run Endless OS, a custom Linux operating system with a familiar phone-like tile interface. A larger, more powerful version, simply called Endless, starts at $189 in the US and runs off an Intel Celeron processor.

Both Endless Mini configurations, officially introduced at CES 2016, are now available to order online, as well as in retail stores in Guatemala, with other regions to follow. The company says that in addition to shipping its first units, it has closed on a new round of funding that will allow it to expand operations in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

The lightweight Mini comes in an attractive cylindrical cardboard container and looks like a much fancier product than its price or specs would lead you to expect. The chassis is a globe of white plastic with translucent red accents, flat on the bottom to sit on a desk. A single USB port is on the front face, while the rest of the ports and connections are on the back panel, allowing you to plug in power, an HDMI cable and a keyboard and mouse, routing all the cables to the rear and out of sight (I found some wireless keyboards did not work with the Linux-based OS, and eventually ended up using a wired keyboard and wireless mouse).

There are other low-cost desktops and laptops that offer better specs and more functionality, if you're willing to pay a little more. The $159 Intel Compute Stick uses an Intel Atom processor and has Windows 10 as its operating system. The Asus Chromebit puts Chrome OS in handy stick form for $85. More self-contained is the HP Stream 11, an 11-inch Windows 10 laptop with an Intel Celeron, which is available for under $200.

But, all of those systems are of very limited usefulness without reliable Internet access. The Chromebit doubly so, as Chrome OS, the stripped down operating system from Google, is little more than a browser-based window to online services.

That's why the Endless Mini packs in preloaded apps and information, so that it can still be of some utility even without internet access (and even when it is online, Web surfing can be painfully slow, thanks to the low-end components). Included are basic office apps, courtesy of LibreOffice, as well as music and video players, and simple photo editing.

The biggest selling point for students is a package of educational apps, packed with useful information. The wiki-like Encyclopedia is perfectly fine for research into all but the most breaking-news topics, and often illustrated, while the Virtual School app consists of Khan Academy videos across a wide variety of topics, from science to finance. A separate section of apps, labeled "Curiosity," covers everything from cooking tips to health information, including first aid guides, in the form of illustrated Web pages or PDF guides.

The apps are not always highly designed or controlled via slick interfaces, but having all this preloaded information is a great advantage for the Endless Mini as a student PC in areas where internet access isn't a given.

When the system is connected online, Google's open-source Chromium browser looks and feels familiar, but like nearly everything else on the Endless Mini, it drags at times. Streaming online video can range from choppy to very good, and even access settings and system menus takes patience. In some basic benchmark testing against the Intel Compute Stick, Asus Chromebit and HP Stream 11, the Endless Mini was far slower.

Using the system as an all day, every day work or social computer would be an exercise in frustration for anyone used to even slower budget laptops or desktops, but for a short-term use, I was able to hop on it and do a little writing or Web surfing before getting bogged down.

Still, the Endless Mini is not being positioned as a mainstream home PC, but rather as a first step into computing for those who have never had access before. Taken as that, it feels like an attractive way to get computers into more hands than ever before, even if this first taste will leave many users eager to upgrade to something more powerful.

Google Octane

Asus Chromebit 7,685HP Stream 11 (2015) 5,976Intel Compute Stick (2016) 5,709Endless Mini 2,294

Jetstream

Asus Chromebit 44.05Intel Compute Stick (2016) 35.953HP Stream 11 (2015) 29.923Endless Mini 16.267

System Configurations

Endless Mini	Endless OS (Linux based); 1.5GHz S805 Quad Core ARM Cortex Mali-450 CPU; 1GB RAM; 32GB SSD
Intel Compute Stick (2016)	Microsoft Windows 10 Home (32-bit); 1.44GHz Intel Atom x5-8300; 2GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600MHz; 128MB (dedicated) Intel HD Graphics; 32GB SSD
HP Stream 11 (2015)	Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3050; 2GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600MHz; 144MB (dedicated) Intel HD Graphics; 32GB SSD
Asus Chromebit	Chrome OS; 1.8GHz Rockchip RK3288-C; 2GB RAM; 16GB SSD