Editor’s note: Lenovo earlier this week entered the “dongle” market with its PC-on-a-stick called the Ideacentre Stick 300. And it’s the leader over Intel as well as Google and Asus, declares Technology Business Research analyst Ezra Gottheil.

HAMPTON, N.H. – Lenovo’s new compute stick represents major innovations in both PCs and and connected television devices. TBR believes the full PC HDMI dongle is an important form factor in both categories, and the price and capabilities of Lenovo’s offering makes it the current leader in the category.

Lenovo’s stick is not the first in the market; the Intel Compute Stick was announced in January 2015 and was available in April. It is more expensive than the Lenovo product, and garnered negative reviews for being unfinished and difficult to set up. TBR believes the Lenovo stick will be a finished consumer product.

The Lenovo Ideacentre Stick 300 is priced starting at $129 and will be available in July. Coupled with a wireless keyboard and touchpad, it turns any display or television with HDMI input into a full Windows PC. It will come with Windows 8.1 installed, with a free upgrade to Windows 10 when available. Wi-Fi makes it part of home and office networks, which connect it to the Internet.

There are other similar devices coming. Google and Asus have announced the ChromeBit, priced “under $100” and available “this summer.” The ChromeBit is the ChromeOS version of the Compute Stick.

TBR envisions several applications for stick PCs. In business, it is a solution to the problem of connecting the conference room large-screen display. It also can power digital signage, departmental calendars, and other applications where an inexpensive common PC is useful.

For the home, it is the least expensive Windows PC possible, expanding the addressable market. Also for consumers, it is, we believe, primed to be a better content player than Apple TV, Roku boxes and sticks, Fire TV, ChromeCast and similar TV accessory solutions. In part this is due to the availability of a keyboard and pointing device, making it far easier to find and order content. The addition of as-desired Web browsing, email, calendars, online shopping makes it a far more complete product than the specialized content players.

The compute stick is an exciting new form factor that will drive the proliferation of PCs. TBR expects to see many more of these devices from many vendors before the holiday season.

(C) TBR