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F**H
A pretty strong mini PC for day to day use, issues with not recognizing a 2.5 sata drive
I actually found this PC to be one of the more powerful mini PC I have seen. The first thing I do like how small it is and how powerful this PC is. In terms of size, I would say it about about the size of a 1st gen Apple Mac Mini. Unlike the other mini PC I have seen, it does not have any mounting holes on this one. It does have rubber feet to prevent it from sliding. I actually turned this into a gaming emulator and put it next to my consoles and it fits neatly. It has a nice non glossy finish top which is nice to avoid getting those unnecessary finger prints on it. It is still easy to grip and also does not get scratched very easily. It does also disperse heat pretty well with this material. The next thing about this is that there are three grills on the back of the computer to make it easy to vent the heat from the device device out the top and keep it cool. That being said the device itself is fairly quiet and stays pretty cool for most of the things I use it for. I pushed the devices capability and it can get a bit warm when you are pushing the CPU and ram. You can feel the warmth from the device and you will hear the CPU fan go off. I am a little disappointed that it only comes with two USB 3.0. These two are only in the from of the computer. The remaining two usb ports, which are on the back, are USB 2.0. I am unsure why everything isn't USB 2.0 because it severely limited how much you can plug in. The unique thing about this is that there is a type c port on the device. I have not seen a mini PC that actually has a type c port in the front. It also gives you enough space so you can still plug in those thumb drives that are both USB A and type c. It seems to only support data transfer as I tried to connect a monitor via type c but it did not work. In terms of using all the plugs, I did plugged in several different devices and they detected and powered them no problem. This includes the bigger 2.5 external hard drives that were 4 to 5 TB each. It only requires one port to power the hard drive even with the USB 2.0. The transfer rate is about the same as any other 3.0 and I had not issues with transferring on those ports. Be aware that transfer speed also depends on the device you plug in as well. The USB 2.0 is significantly slower but that is to be expected. Again there are two USB 2.0 ports in the back and two USB 3.0 in the front making it easy to access devices without needing to look behind. When I have all my devices plugged in the whole computer looks a little weird as there are a bunch of cables coming out of every side except the front. This can made it a bit difficult to cable manage which is why I wish there were USB 3.0 on the back so I can just plug my hard drive in the back and have the faster transfer speed. The USB plugs are relatively spaced out so you have plenty of wiggle room to work with even with the type c port. This pc uses the power brick to power on. The power brick can take up more than one plug on the outlet being a big size. The power button is in the front and with the m2 drive it boots up pretty quick. The device only has 256 GB memory which is perfect for just running the operating system and a few application. You can upgrade as this is just an M2 B+M keyed drive. I did not have the other connect to test if it will read on the computer. The M2 M keyed drive would fit but I am not sure it will read on this device. A bummer about this and that was suppose to be a unique thing about this is that you can install your own 2.5 hard drive for more space. I tried and read on the forum that the 2.5 hard drive does not read on this even though it advertises that. That is a bit of a bummer. This device can be used as a basic gaming PC and it most likely cannot handle the higher graphic intesive game however you can emulate some games on it which is great. I was able to get emulators for ps2 working on this device and it ran pretty smooth but it did cause my fans to spin pretty high overtime. Being a small computer this run a pretty powerful i5 processor. Unlike the celeron, atom, or pentium processors, this actually has more CPU power and does not constantly have 80% cpu usage just on stand by. You do get any lag when opening up the browser and you can multitask a lot easier on this device than other mini PC. Everything loads relatively smoothly and without issue. You are able to dual screen with this device and it does not drain my CPU or RAM by very much. It does have two HDMI ports and no display port. With this, you can dual screen with this mini PC. It can output to at least 1080 p which is great. It also worked really well on my 4k television to stream youtube and such. It also has a built in wifi that can connect to 2.4 or 5 Ghz. There is also an ethernet port on the back for direct connection. Overall, this PC is a pretty powerful mini computer. Even thought you cannot upgrade the GPU, the computer can do a decent job with some basic gaming and emulation. It also is great with multitasking It can watch videos, transfer files, and anything else you may want to put onto your TV. It has the dual monitor capability and you can do a good amount of work on this mini PC. I do feel it is a bit overpowered just to be a media center. I definitely would recommend this to replace your roku or other media streaming device as it really does give you more control and accessibility to sites and such. Essentially this is definitely more powerful then the lower end model. This PC has a bit more flexibility so you can make upgrade and changes which is what makes it different from other models. It also has a stronger processor and more ram compared to the traditional celeron and 4 gb ram. The issue is that it only gives you two USB 2.0 ports and they are on the back which makes it very difficult to cable manage especially if you want to keep a external drive constantly connected. You have to plug it into the front to utilize the 3.0. Also it does not support 2.5 drives as advertised. Although I do not plan to use that, it is bad that it does not work as advertised. This is a good powerful device regardless for someone who wants a strong mini pc that has multitasking capability and can be used as an every day PC.
M**N
Mini PC with a fan that really, really blows.
Overall this PC works well, but the fan is extremely loud. With the current BIOS it varies from not too loud to small jet engine depending on if the mouse is clicked. The fan speed is NOT based on the heat generated, it is based on the load on the processor so it goes up and down at a crazy pace. They have a BIOS update that makes the fan constant, at jet-engine volume, which isn't helpful.The BIOS on this machine is a mess, many parts do not work properly. There are updates to perform specific functions like power up on power on, but it doesn't contain any of the other updates. That is problematic if you want the fan update and the power-on update. If they get the BIOS fixed, this might be a nice machine.As far as power and performance go, it seems like a wonderful machine. I've not had any issues with performance as it has done everything that I've asked of it, though I haven't tried to game with it, I suspect it would do any internet-based games fine.Windows 10 is problematic as it does not have a recovery disk included so if it totally crashes you are left without a good/easy way to restore it to working order. I suggest creating a backup. Veeam worked well for me for this function and it is free.For me the fan issue is not important as the function of this PC is to sit in a remote location and be accessed via VNC. Using it that way works very well, though I don't think Wake-on LAN works on the BIOS I'm using. I just press the button when I need it. Make sure you do the Windows install with the LAN unplugged to get a local account rather than a network account to Windows.If the fan worked better and the BIOS wasn't such a mess, which is tied to the same issue, then I would say this would get 5 stars. At the moment, it only gets 3.
L**H
Powerful mini-PC with a decent configuration for any entertainment room !!
Your browser does not support HTML5 video. My need to buy a mini PC was to live stream and watch YouTube videos along with some light web browsing on my office monitor when my wife takes over our MacBook. And this mini-PC sparkles on all the breakthroughs set by me. I have tried other mini-PC in past but the experience was not good with them due to super slow speed.Now talking about this product, everybody ought to know that this PC is usually not implied for overwhelming utilization, and over-clocking is constrained for the execution of transmission capacity utilization apps. I have utilized it fair for 7 days as in the event that presently and my review is exclusively based on this brief encounter with the gadget. I will unquestionably overhaul this audit in case my point of view changes within the future amid long-run usage.My 2 cents below :Pros:- High HD video including 4K run so smooth without any issues. Have tried YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and many online free content providers- Mini-PC runs super fast even when I do multi-tasking- No issue with web browsing too. I have parallelly used multi-tabs without any issue and playing multiple youtube windows together definitely works as well- Decent configuration: Intel i5-5257u processor. Its base operating frequency 2.70 GHz/s rising to a 3.10 GHz in burst mode- Intel Iris Graphics 6100 is add on to calibrate as per your need- It has WIFI (both 2.4 and 5ghz). My Keyboard/Mouse connected works flawlessly- Multiple I/O ports: 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 Type-C port, 1 Gigabit Ethernet port, 1 TF card port, 2 HDMI ports support Dual Display. You can never expect so many in mini PC's- The device itself is very light and portable. Refer to my attached picture where comparing with my old mini-PC- Comes with a monitor VESA mount to place it behind the screen- Licensed version 64bit Windows 10 Professional is pre-installed- PC performance is good enough for the processor and with 8 GB DDR3 RAM. Doesn't slows down the operation drastically while running the latest windows- Comes with 256 GB M.2 SSD already installed in it- It doesn't overheat. Thanks to the fan beneath it. I kept it on with video playing for 3+ hours and still went good- You can connect hard disk up to 2TB 2.5-Inch SATA HDD/SSD with this small machine. And even external SD card reader is there too which supports up to 512GB- 1-year worry-free warranty providedCons:- Yes, it does have a fan and so do the noise. Sometimes more when PC runs the heavy job but I would say it's a trade-off to keep the PC running efficiently without any issues and I am completely okay with it.Considering the cost and convenience in a room where you do not need to put through huge laptops/tablets, I profoundly suggest this product.
Trustpilot
3 weeks ago
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