Google And ASUS Launch The $85 Chromebit, A Chrome OS Desktop On An HDMI Stick
Earlier this year, Google and ASUS announced the Chromebit — a full Chrome OS-based computer on an HDMI stick. Today, the two companies are officially launching this new way of using Chrome OS on any screen with an HDMI port.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Chromebit was announced back in April as a sub-$100 promise; today it ships at $85, making it the cheapest way yet to put a full desktop OS on any HDMI-equipped screen. It lands just weeks after ASUS launched its own $129 VivoStick running Windows 10, which sets up an unusual situation: the same OEM is now selling competing sticks on both operating systems.
The launch also extends Chrome OS's push into non-laptop form factors that started this year with the $249 Asus Chromebook Flip convertible, while HP has been probing the same territory from the Windows side with its $180 Stream Mini aimed at Chromeboxes.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a full Chrome OS computer for $85 — undercutting ASUS's own $129 Windows VivoStick and HP's $180 Stream Mini by a wide margin on entry price.
- ASUS immediately competes against itself, with the Chrome OS stick priced $44 below its Windows counterpart in the same PC-on-a-stick category.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft's hardware partners face pressure to defend Windows' low-end stick pricing, since the Chromebit makes Chrome OS the default answer for cost-sensitive digital-signage and kiosk deployments on existing screens.
- Display and TV makers gain a new attach market: every HDMI port becomes a potential Chrome OS seat, expanding the addressable base beyond Chromebook buyers.
Third-order effects
- Chrome OS keeps spreading across form factors rather than staying a laptop OS — a line that later shows up in HP's $600 Chromebase all-in-one — pushing Windows to compete on price at the bottom of the desktop market.
- As the compute moves into $50–$100 dongles, the screen itself becomes the product; Google's later $50 Chromecast with Google TV points toward that convergence, where cheap HDMI devices are defined by what they stream more than what they compute.
The trend: The PC-on-a-stick is turning into a Chrome OS-versus-Windows price war fought through shared OEMs, with cheap HDMI dongles pulling computing toward the screen itself.