Thank you everyone! I did find out that there is a microSD card reader, so I dove back into it and uploaded a shorter video as an addendum. There is also a picture of the RAM chips. Let me know what you think! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M4lHShoU07Y.html
@@johnniecortez5043 Yes and no and maybe. You'd have to be specific about the game. AAA titles I wouldn't even try. Something from 10 years ago is a maybe. I did some SNES emulation with it and it worked fine.
I object to your fake pricing. The honest price was 118 dollar. That's the price at which anyone can get it. The fact you have a coupon is irrelevant. Unless you are going to supply coupons to your viewers. I know this attracting of views with low prices is common behaviour on RU-vid. But I for one don't accept channels that use it. Like channels claiming to build 50 dollar 3d printers, but only if you happen to have a 1000 dollar in spare parts in your drawers. That's just cheating. If you name a price that price has to be for everyone. Otherwise the video was fine.
The reviewer is not trying to be funny or entertaining, he just gives honest info we all need. How refreshing, that is precisely what I need from the tech reviews. Thanks! (Subscribed)
Thanks! Sometimes I like to add a little humor, just to show I'm human, make mistakes, and am not perfect. I think those are important aspects to show too. Thanks for your comment and sub! I hope you like my other content and reviews too.
Seems to me like the Geekbench scores for this processor are better than the unobtanium Raspberry pi, so I will be using one for pihole, open media vault, etc. Thanks for posting!
for the time, Pi's is just waste of money and time, you better off pull a ITX B85/Z97 Haswell board and a lower TDP CPUs (like i7 4790s) combos with good PICO-ITX PSUs and 32GB of DDR3, and it's still cheaper than 8GB variant of Pi 4, and you got more powerfull hardware, better software support, and even better I/O, the power consumption is not that bad either.
You can get an Orange Pi Zero 2 for $24 on ALi Express and $2 for a USB expansion, it is 100Mhz faster than a Pi 3B+ and can run Debian Ubuntu and Android, OMV and Pihole will run ok on it too, if you get it from the manufacturers Ali Express listing delivery is just 10 days
Got one of these about 6 months ago and use it for my security cameras, been running 24/7 since set up and hasn't caused any problems. I've also used it as an office PC and for other applications and it just works.
I ordered one on a Black friday deal for $55. Half the price of a Windows licence. It's a solution looking for a problem now. Thanks for the review & heads up.
I bought one of these last year. Made a great 3rd PC for the house, powerful enough for RU-vid and playing MP3s. I'm not a gamer so it works well for me.
Nice, thorough review. A tip for dealing with driver issues when reinstalling Windows is to copy your C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder to a removable drive before you perform your clean install. I recently discovered this tip when I decided to do a clean install on an old laptop. Luckily for me, I upgraded the SSD for the clean install and was able to use the drivers from the old SSD to restore Bluetooth functionality after a couple of hours searching in vain for drivers online.
I used to do tech support at people's homes and used these a lot. A lot of my customers would be senior citizens running new software on 15-20 year old hardware and ask me if I could do something to speed it up. These aren't fast but always way faster than their existing machines. If they're just using email and a web browser it's a fine machine. They were always amazed at the small size of the machine and the boot up speed of an SSD. I think I spent about $120 for higher RAM. I liked them so much my mom has one. I had bought her a $2,500 surface PC and saw she never used it as a tablet. The battery started failing and became a fire hazard. So I gave her one of these. She loves it. Slow for me (a gamer and 3D artist with a 3K+ PC). But for her? It's fine. Her most power hungry app is her photo screensaver. I'm not worried about upgrading to Windows 11. She still hasn't forgiven me for upgrading her from Windows XP when it was End Of Life. 😆
Neat! Honestly, I appreciate that you had no sponsor. Was an honest unbought opinion. :) Id like to see a good affordable mini-pc that could handle some triple AAA games at a decent resolution. So we can make a semi-portable handle-held(using a wireless monitor/low-cost old phone and a bluetooth game controller). But I feel like thats asking for the heavens to rain gold upon us. lol.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. Affordable and specs needed are different to everyone. The Trigkey S5 with the Ryzen 5560U that I reviewed might fit the bill, but at five to six times what I bought this machine for and I've not played in AAA games on it to see for certain. I think I've seen a few reviewers do just that though.
For that price, it's definitely worth picking up for a home nas. I already have a home nas that I run truenas scale, but I miss having an open media vault nas, so I think I'll pick this little guy up for that. I like OMV for the one-click install of docker and portainer, as well as the one click updates for both. Thanks for the heads up on the deal and the performance review!
My worry about using it as a NAS is until there are tests that demonstrate long term stability and reliability I would worry about whether I would trust my data to the unit. Performance is more than adequate for many data storage or network management roles, but if I find it dies after 6 months, or worse yet starts creating silent data corruption that I don't find out about until two years later then I still have question marks.
@@Hfil66 how is that scenario is any different with any hardware? having this as a NAS is probably more reliable than getting a NAS Box like synology or any brand with their own proprietary hardware which cannot be bought or available anyway, sure I agree this shouldn't be used as a NAS because of limited I/O for storage, however data corruption 99% in my own case is because the disk failure rather than mainboard/system faulty.
@@4fouryon I cannot comment specifically about specialised NAS boxes as I tend just to use general purpose computers for NAS. Data corruption can be from many causes. Total corruption of the disk is most likely because of something wrong with the disk or a power supply issue, but bit rot can happen from many causes and the problem is that by the time you find out it happened it is often too late to work out which component caused it to happen (including caching in main memory, or a software hiccup). The problem is that all hardware has design compromises and quality control compromises. This is as true for big name products as the small cost cutters as here, but the difference is that the big names, with big customer bases and high media visibility, are going to get caught out far sooner when (not if, but when) they decide to cut a corner.
This only has one SATA port. Can USB drives be trusted in a 24/7 NAS setup?? A few years ago, I backed up my wife's WIndows laptop to move everything to her new one. Took a lot of effort to backup, as the USB drive would just randomly disconect when transfering hundreds of files. I eneded up pulling the drive out of the laptop, plugging it into my Linux desktop, and copying all the files that way (to the same USB destination drive).
Thank you for the comment! I paid about twice this for a small PC with dual NICs and made a pfsense firewall. It is going to need to support Gigabit up and down or I could have opted to use a USB3 to Ethernet adapter. Because of the low idle power this one is ideal for a small network controller or storage. It is nice to have maybe 500GB of files available all the time while TB's of storage go to sleep until you need them.
I have had two similarly specced machines like these for the past few years. My experience is: They are lackluster to use as a NAS (external storage), but sufficient if you aren't demanding optimal performance (~80MB/s). They are ideal media servers. They make good routers (external NIC) up to about 600Mbps, USB NICs are too demanding on the CPU for it to go faster. They are perfect for small web/mail/db server setups. I have a few Raspberry Pis, and consider these cheap NUCs vastly superior at roughly the same price point.
Those used to be sold under the brand "Acepc" some 3 years ago. I bought one for a friend of mine who has a doctor's practice as his office PC. It replaced a years old tower. External USB hard disk for data storage and backup purposes, a wireless Logitech mouse/keyboard combo and a 27" Philips monitor, a USB to serial adapter for a pin printer form carbon copy forms was needed, it's hooked up to a VPN tunnel box for data transfer between health insurance and the practice, and a laser printer is connected via USB as well. We needed a small usb hub as we needed one port more than the machine had. The mini pc hides underneath the monitor, and can easily be locked away in a safe during holiday absences. The perfect solution.
I have had something like this running as a pfsense router for years. I have one with 4 intel gigabit nics integrated in it. And it has regular laptop memory you have to add yourself, so not soldered onto it. It also comes from china and works fine, never had any issues with it. It basicly is an intel nuc. Or a laptop without screen and keybord. They have many uses, they work great as a nas, a little home server, an extremely powerful router and firewall etc.
Thanks for your feedback. I had something similar running with pfsense, but moved from it due to it having Realtek NICs and it locking up. Switched to a firewall like appliance with Intel NIC chips and it seems to be running okay. Otherwise I think there is enough power to do a lot with this machine, it is just waiting for me to ask it.
@@ntgm20 yeah, had so many issues with non intel nics as well. They are fine on consumer devices and stuff usually. But when using multiple in one system or in things like routers and stuff the drivers just don't seem to manage to be stable.
It definitely is an interesting device for the price. I would have had a closer look at the USB C connector as it may not use the standard connections and could have reversed D1+ - and D2+- lines ( 4 wires ) to a non standard pattern, keeping the power connections standard so as to not blow things up ( or not even connected to provide power to a drive adapter ).
Interesting point. I've decided in part for the next reviews I'm taking a lot more close up video or pictures of the boards, as that could set me apart from other reviewers and keep this more interesting.
Nice video. Not a fan of the Intel Celeron J3455 though it's usually the standard budget device/aio offering. If given the choice you can obtain a system of the same era, or newer for around the same price point that's more capable in a Lenovo ThinkCentre M93 or HP EliteDesk 800 G3. Those come in varying configurations and the second hand market dumps them for $50-150+. I've got a few in production running some containers and I can go on about how great they are. The most recent variants also support m.2 sata/SSD.
Agreed, but these new machines will also be targeted at people wanting something they don't have to mess with. My goal is to show what you get for the money, but I'm also looking at them for power consumption. I have worked with HP Elitedesk SFFs and Minis and the power draw is the difference. The video I'm uploading now concerns processors from 2021 at least.
For handling documents, mail and browsing I'd say you could even go down to an Atom CPU... not that I have first hand experience, I was in the market for a mini PC and landed on that instead of Celeron. Lower voltage, cheaper, you come to the point your monitor costs more and takes more power than the PC itself.
I think this would work great for powering a NAS setup with external drives, or as a system gateway for a home network. i currently have an older HP laptop with a broken screen, for my Koozali/SME server for my gateway, and this would draw considerably less power, not to mention be considerably faster with the SSD drive. All I would have to add would be one of the gigabit USB adapters to get my extra LAN port. Definitely worth looking into! Great review, thanks!😁👍
Thanks! The real big question as a gateway is the RealTek chips. I'm in the midst of trying to figure out what is going on with the little Bytenuc I made a pfsense machine, and why I've had to do three hard resets in a week. As a NAS though absolutely an option for small scale storage solution, or like you said larger with external drives. I've wondered how something like this would work with those enclosures that can do 2/4/6 drives and connected over USB.
@@ntgm20 I know some Realtek chips have been a problem in the past on most Linux distros (like the RTL-8169). I wonder what the part #'s are on these? I ended up buying a slightly different brand yesterday, that was only $99 complete, since I couldn't find a coupon that would work for this one, and they're going for $139 now. Same basic setup, just a little slower on the CPU, and 4 gb. of RAM which is still plenty for Koozali/SME server. My aging HP laptop with the broken screen only has 4 gb., and I rarely have to reset it. Pass-though performance is good enough for my 20mb. down and 1024kb. up DSL, so as not to bottleneck the system. I don't think the Realtek chips would even be an issue, since in my case, I'm using 2 USB > gigabit ethernet adapters because the HP doesn't have an available ethernet port, just wi-fi. SME server recognized them immediately.😉
Guess I bought it at the right time-mine has a 64gb drive but all other specs are the same-5 days ago I paid $21.99 for it but now back up to $89.99 on Amazon. Everything started up just find and it works ok to internet surf. Something to play with hooked up to my TV
Took a chance and ordered one with new price and $45 coupon, turned out to be $80 price after that. I think I'll format it and give it to a relative that has been using my gaming PC for only browsing Facebook, and get my gaming PC back from them. Seems like just enough machine to do everything they need.
Great video. I purchased one of these $60 mini-pcs and so far I am pleased with it. I agree that the OS that comes on the PC is suspect. I re-installed a fresh version of Windows 10. Most of the drivers auto-installed except for PCI Simple Com Controller and SM Bus. These driver issues were resolved by install the Intel Chipset Software Installer (sm bus) and Turbo Boost Install driver (PCI simple com controller) from Acer (look under the details of the device in "device manager" and then Google the ID string of the device). The system does seem to be more responsive and quicker after resolving these driver issues. I installed a SATA SSD and it seems to perform quite well with Windows 10 for the price/size of the device.
Wow.. very cool... now.. I just need to go through every single video of this channel. To see if their are reviews of cheap minis that will be game able
Thanks! There is the miniPC playlist now that should make that part easy. I've done a few things with computers and an ODROID-C4 over the last three years, but you feel free to watch them all if you are so inclined!
I replaced my tower with one of these but with 16gb ram and 512gb ssd and I have noticed very little differance and upgraded to win11 pro no problem and dropped from a 650w power supply to a 35w one
This channel is honestly underrated! I look up for watching more videos like this! Opinions about reviewing ARM based mini PCs? I wanna see some of these.
You are too kind! My main issue with ARM SBCs is lack of long term support. You can find software when it first comes out, but they might not have any new images the next go around and it relies on the manufacture to keep up. Raspberry Pi is the outlier in that statement. That is in part why I'm going these x86 machines. Now x86 SBCs would be neat, but they are often more expensive than what I've reviewed so far.
@@InterlacedTech "ARM PCs will get better by time" I hope so, but I'm not sure I agree. They tend to suffer from feature/driver fragmentation simple because there are so many different models by so many different manufacturers.
For me it's best as a retro gaming/emulation rig, or a cheap 1080p HTPC/Jukebox Setup. I would not use it for anything that may require "sensitive" data though. For me Batocera Linux would be the best I can install Kodi for video playback of my backup videos, and a web browser so I can go to Internet Archive without needing to give away any personal info to watch/get stuff (as long as I put in a 1TB SSD/HDD) as well as play all my favorite classic games. At the time I watched this I could only get a $30 off coupon on the 64GB version so I'd just wait until a better coupon comes around before buying it (with $50 off it's a way better deal.)
All sound like good uses. Finding a deal is the hard part after deciding if it is something worth getting for sure. Maybe I can give you some alternatives soon to look at.
@@ntgm20 Well I look for other people that want something really cheap, but Amazon's search feature is anything but helpful. I did find some other systems that are just as cheap (or cheaper) though they have different CPUs in them. One of them has a AMD A9-9400 for around $75~85 after coupon.
I certainly would have bought it at that bargain price. Prices on the east of the Atlantic for such products are far higher! Love the format, independence so have subscribed.
Thank you! I lived on that side for a while. I'm impressed too when some European YT creators can find some used things there for a sweet deal that we never got here.
Aw, my initial comment didn't save. Thanks! As for swapping CPUs, they are soldered on and beyond my skill and equipment to swap out. Defiantly would be some sort of adventure.
If I were going to run Windows on it, I'd use something like Double Driver (yes it still works!) to take a snapshot of the installed drivers before reloading it. When adding an SSD, did Windows give you the option to install on it instead of the built-in drive? Thanks for the no nonsense review!
Thank you! I've tried to apply this concept to the other machines I've reviewed afterwards. That is a good idea, but in part I want to see how bad or hard it is to get support. That stems from the first mini I got (not yet reviewed) and was disappointed but found work arounds. So many brands selling the same thing (or so it seems) I'd like to see how their support services run. I found the fix for the drivers in my update video. For reinstalling Windows, I didn't install a second SSD just overwrote what was there.
Good Editing. Thanks for making it short. So many howto youtube host love to hear their own voice. And they would probaly turn this video into a 20 minute video. Good practicle info. I'm hoping you are going to show how to turn it into a linux server of some sort.
Thank you! I really like to develop 3 to 5 minute videos, but I think to cover just what little I do with these 10 minutes is going to be the norm. I'm more likely to click on videos under 15 minutes. Next year maybe I can give a quick guide on install, as I've done it just about as many times as Windows installs in the past three years.
Thanks! For me, the 4k playback test was actually the most telling bit, because I'd be using something as a more powerful retro emulation system than a Raspberry Pi.
You are very welcome! Did you happen to see the video before you purchased or after? Also interesting to hear what Linux distro you chose to go with, and it it all works out well for you.
Thanks! I'm up to three videos of these with a total of four machines, I have three more and one in the mail to do, and maybe some supplemental videos to cover things tested afterwards based on comments or things I just cut due to time and format.
@@ntgm20 I think there's a nice niche out there for low power systems not only for desktop use but as home servers. I have no need for this one personally but it's good to have more people objectively bringing numbers forward and especially deals! Maybe make a community page where people can get deals then a link to your review as it comes out. I imagine that there can be a delay between you spotting a deal and a review video coming out aka deal's gone by the time your first sub/viewer sees the video. I'm personally after a low cost, low power NAS to replace my old one. Sadly it's a bit special.. I have 10Gbit fibre around the house so I need one with sfp+ network (or pcie-x slot to accomodate a card) + 1 or 2 nvme for cache and 2+ sata (ideally 3.5") and I am REALLY trying to avoid just slapping it in a desktop due to idle power draw typically in the double digits.. My other issue is do I make 1 system that includes NAS and other home services or split it in 2.. Case 1: I'll need a beefier CPU + RAM Case 2: I'm not sure how low I can go in CPU/RAM that will be able to stream out 1GB transfers in/out consistently I think I've been chasing that system for 2years now lol.. anyway I'm rambling. Have a fun weekend!
@@Airbag888 Have you considered a NAS that shuts down when you don't need it? My current setup here is networked backup server (video on that too) with 2 HDDS, but it only comes on at night to do backups or on the weekends I can go turn it on or send a Wake Up signal. My always on files are on a SBC, so very low power draw.
@@ntgm20 Given my situation (kids/wife streaming off it, backups made to it and cctv also archiving there, etc it has to stay up 24/7 for me).. I'm considering having SBCs (rpi, etc) for always on systems like home assistant that are not too greedy and maybe have my server hosting vms be switched off more often
For that price, that is a great system for someone that needs a cheap PC right now. If it were me, I would suggest spending a few dollars more, and pick up a mini PC with the J4125, which can be upgraded to Windows 11. I have a NUKBOX(2nd design) with the J4125, upgraded to Windows 11, and its a great little system for surfing. I have all of the desktop systems in the house upgraded to mini PC's, and the NUKBOX has the lowest specs... but it is still snappy and fun to use.
I probably should add stuff like that in, but everyone's view of that is different, and I don't use noice very often. I'm trying to remember what it is mostly from.
@@ntgm20 It runs blazingly fast with Lubuntu 22.04.1. I also own a mini pc with a n3350 and 4GB of DDR3 ram, which is noticably slower when running Lubuntu 20.04: although the onboard eMMC storage of 64GB (400M/s) is in part to blame.
Thanks for the suggestion. I can't imagine most of these are anything more than 3.0 or 3.1 Gen1, and probably nothing more for power. The U59 Pro I just tested is probably USB 3.2 Gen1 as it has a USB-C connector. I wonder what the best way to see/test that is...
Great review, great little Mini PC for the price!! Would have liked to see something on the noise levels while under load. I've just purchased a "Mele Quieter3Q" to use as a home Linux server. Setting it up as we speak. So far, very impressed. I've been using Raspberry Pi units before the Quieter3Q. I basically use these to run my home gitolite server, LAMP stack (for my blog), Samba server, etc... I chose the Quieter3Q because it doesn't have a fan. I tried out the Windows 11 it came pre-installed with, worked well, but the unit becomes too hot to touch! Running Arch Linux (headless, no desktop), it runs cool.
I've seen a couple of reviews on the Quieter3Q. Someone put sat a big aluminum heatsink on there and it was a big difference in temps running Windows outside in the heat of Atlanta. He also mentioned removing the stickers from the top helped. This machine is pretty quiet at idle, you can hear it but not bad. At load it sounds kind of like a laptop but a slightly deeper tone, if that makes sense. With something like what you are doing you'd rarely get it under enough of a load, unless your blog gets lots of traffic.
Good video, and yes, I would take a chance on a computer like this, especially at this price. I’m actually impressed. I probably wouldn’t use it as a general purpose computer. I might put a single app on it like home automation.
It is probably powerful enough to use several Docker images and you could run a few things. I've been bad over the years and just run multiple things like web host, file server, and database server all on the same machine. That was a lot less powerful than this.
Thanks for posting this video. Have you figured out how to set the 2nd drive as the boot drive? On the one I have, the BIOS doesn't seem to see the installed SSD but it appears in Windows. Any ideas?
Thanks! Can you see the second boot device when hitting F7 during boot? If not there is something wrong with the install. Also you may need to disable secure boot. Hopefully that can help you figure it out, I don't have access to the machine for a couple weeks.
Can I use it with just the kodi to watch movies and live sports matches? I don't want it for another job!!! Does it play smoothly, or will there be any sticking? Does it play all modern audio formats from the hdmi output? Thanks.
I've not used Kodi to know for certain. I played local files last night from a USB3 thumb drive and those all went smoothly, up to 4k 30p at over 100 Mbps for H264, H265, and VP9. The audio played over HDMI to the TV I was testing with.
Do you have the original BIOS firmware available? I flashed the firmware myself in order to modify the frequency, but now my NVMe drive is not being recognized. I happened to come across your video, and it seems that you have the same machine as mine. Thank you!
I still have the BIOS it came with. If I can find how to easily dump it I'd be glad to share. Of note: mine came with M.2 SATA and I've not tried a NVMe drive.
Thanks! That is a hard one to answer exactly, especially not knowing what file type or resolution you're trying to edit. Intel CPUs are normally a little better than AMD, and if going with any used computer with a Core i3/5/7 I'd stick with 6th generation, 8th or newer even better (more cores). Little systems like this, not sure, N5100 or higher probably better than this system, and I've seen those kinds of systems for $150 or less on sale, kind of like the Beellink Mini S I reviewed.
That is my thought. Take all these little machines I'm getting and use in a lab setting, and if one goes kaput you still have others and they don't take up a lot of room either.
That all depends on if transcoding is required. If not and it is simply streaming that should be okay. I've not messed with Plex instead I've done testing with Emby on my ODRIOD-C4 and some 10th gen iCore processors. I have stuff that plays well, stuff that transcodes okay, and stuff that will make machines cry for mercy.
Thank you for covering the USB C port on the inside. I saw it and wondered what it could be for myself. Now I just need to figure a workaround for my power issue. I don't have enough available outlets near my TV and the cables it came with don't reach the next closest outlet (plus there's a doorway between the two). So I've been thinking of adding a wireless connection to my TV so the TV can be my monitor. I need to find one that can plug into the TV's HDMI port. Any suggestions on which one will work best? My TV is a bit too old to be a Smart TV as I bought it used from the Salvation Army thrift store.
Thanks. Sorry, I don't have experience with wireless HDMI adapters. Would it be easier to use a long power extension cable and run it over the doorway? I've done that with some other items and 15 foot cords.
good video, as a lunix user ( i have a 2000+$ gaming pc thats never had windows run on it). I really like how you run a few bench marks on a Linux distro . could i suggest adding geekbench5 for windows as well to show the diffrince in performace , that you would get to people who doubt Linux`s performance.
Thanks. The main reason I do the Geekbench test under Linux is to get a truer since of the different machines. It would be interesting though to do a video at some point showing the two together and how that can impact benchmarks. I've seen videos where people are trying to benchmark while running OBS on the same machine and wonder if they realize how that negatively impacts their scores.
For 70$ for documents and everything, that makes a decent office PC that can utilize some sort of LAN storage bank on the network if I needed something for homework this would be something I’d buy my kid (if it holds at 70 with all the discounts)
Discounts come and go as the price also fluctuates but it really isn't a bad system. After reviewing other systems though for a little bit more finding a generation newer CPU that is still 4 core does run smoother.
if you want to find those other drivers for the unknown devices, right click them, do properties, details tab, and choose hardware ID under the proprty pulldown and then copy/paste the longest string (usually the top one) which shows vendor ID and hardware ID and google for that device.....i have hda cases where it SEEMS like it wont matter since everything seems fine but it will actually be a major system device that really DOES make a diff...sometimes you have to use driver installers from other manufacturers but thats usually fine too, as long as the HID/VID is the same, they should install, and thats how i always get all of my devices up and running from dev manager
@@ntgm20 Well I have mine up and running. Like you I find that the USB C port just provides power. My only real issue with this purchase is the lack of sound. But I think a low cost USB sound device would solve this. I do like the fast boot up and low power use and low noise factor. For the cost IMO its hard to beat. I think I will be trying your windows update trick to reinstall drivers. I did have one question. Just about where is that Micro SD card reader located? Could a slot be milled into the case to make it accessable? I do have a spare 64 gig micro that I could slip into there and use for storage. Or I suppose I can just pull the motherboard, slip in the card and put it back together.
@@Ghosthawk332nd No sound? I could get sound over HDMI and out the headphone jack. As for the card slot, it would be to the right of the USB if looking at them straight on, about in line with the bottom of the USB ports. I think you could modify the case fairly easy, it is plastic. You would need to do that, be ause with a card in there you can't get it to fit back in the case. I had that idea too. I'm hoping to mod it after I move, of the boxes I sent myself get there.
@@ntgm20 I did get mine to fit back together with a SD card in it but it was not easy. Long term moding the case would be the elegant solution. The spot is to the left of the power button and above the air intake for the CPU fan. I had a 64 gig micro SD card laying around so I used it. Nice to have some extra storage.
For me I'd want a 4 core processor and it would be great to have AES and some video encode/decode support. RAM I'd say 6GB, 8 is better. 4 is okay but you can hit that limit fairly easily with moden web browsers. USB 3 as well and enough ports to plug in keyboard and mouse as well as a drive or two.
I would buy this. We don't get deals like this too often on the Canadian site and they usually won't ship from the US site. Gotta laugh, though. I can't run Windows 11 on my ThinkPad with a Core i7 and 32 GB of ram. But, I have it on a Raspberry Pi. I know, it's the ARM version, but still.....
Yeah, it is a bummer and I follow Dawid and he has those kinds of issues getting things. You might tray AliExpress if they aren't too bad coming into Canada. You might not find this exact one, but I'm hoping to do its successor this week, the GK2.
@@ntgm20 I buy from Ali Express all the time. Actually, I started buying off-lease refurbished computers. The Microsoft certified ones show up like new, they were good quality when new and lots of documentation.
First result on ebay for a optiplex 3060m with i3 8100t, 4gb ram and a 120ssd is $100 obo. No power cord or wifi/Bluetooth but they're $35 combined. Native win 11 support and will take up to a 9900t, 32gb of ram and 8tb of on board storage. Not that anyone would ever do that but compared to a little no name, soldered together box, I'm taking the optiplex.
Good find and to each their own. Shipping used PCs to Alaska can be really expensive, so finds like this on Amazon can ship for free and save some on that too.
I got this one for $57.99 (64gb + 6GB RAM version) before taxes, test it with the included Windows 10, then formatted the internal storage and installed Windows 11 Pro, it is running better than with Windows 10. The stock storage hits a maximun of 270 MB/s read and maximun 170 MB/s write in CrystalDiskMark with everything in Windows 10 or Windows 11 settings turned off like background apps and updates. Wifi and Bluetooth works very well but i will not using those (turned off to save resources / energy). I hook up this Mini PC on a 24" monitor with the included VESA mount. Is running the Reolink client app for Windows and zero issues streaming my Reolink 4K 8mp camera but of course the streaming is at the standard mode and not the more clear mode bc it will lag like crazy having only 4 cores but does the job of showing who's at my office's front door and recording the 4K clips to a external Teamgroup 512gb SSD that i have long ago and right now is at $24.49 on Amazon :) and that SSD is connected to a USB 3.0 adapter bc works faster that way than installing it to the internal SATA connector :( [Is a $60ish mini pc ok]. Working just fine, the recordings or clips are 4K 25fps and i can view those clips from anywhere even watch live view with my cellphone with no issues, downloading those 4k clips to my cellular that uses LTE connection zero issues whatsoever so i will buy 2 more of this mini pc for other uses.
Very cool. For the lagging in 4k, if they are using h.265 that could be a big reason. Look for how to install the hvec codec (there is a free way too) and that should clear it up A LOT if the stream is indeed h.265/hvec.
I use a slightly more powerful system as a low power Jellyfin server/NAS/home theater. I just attached a 4gb external hard drive and it works for what I use it for.
Sure! I just put a link in the video description. You might not see it at the same price I snagged it for, but it is worth looking around, some of these are sold on multiple listings and you can save a little shopping around.
Good video, I like the honest review which is a hard item to come by with 99.99999999991% of youtube being paid $hit reviews. I'm frequently trying to evaluate these cheaper mpc (mini pc's) and your video hit on all points, appreciate you showing the streaming (maybe put a game next time for fun? maybe mech warrior 4?), good looking out with your note about wiping the system don't just plug and play 👍 Quack quack 🦆and keep up the good work ✌
My company bought a couple dozen of these, but they were branded ace-pc, we found them to have about a 70% failure rate, at least the batch we got, im sure they would work pretty well with Linux as long as it doesn't have a hardware failure like we had
What were the failures like? That is one of my concerns with little boards like this, where you can't replace RAM if it goes or CPU. With all the other systems I have run and PCs I've picked up and tested I think I've only had one or two bad cases of RAM. At least the storage isn't soldered on this one.
@@ntgm20 I'm unsure exactly what failed on them, maybe something to do with power regulation as they would just randomly reboot or just cut off and not power back on even with a different power supply
I have a terrible issue with this mini PC: every time I restart the Windows OS, once the computer starts booting again, it only shows a black screen, and the Keyboard and mouse do not work... it does not even show the BIOS splash screen (American trends logo). I have to disconnect the power adaptor, wait for like 5 minutes, and then connect the adapter again and it starts working. the interesting part is that if I connect the adaptor less than 5 minutes after I disconnect it, it does not work. I have had to repeat that process every time I reboot the PC. It is like the BIOS gets stuck. I even tried with Xubuntu/Lubuntu and the same problem arises.
@@ntgm20 only one week... and as I have installed/unistalled OSs I guess, returning the device is not an options now...... On the other hand, I tested different settings and the problem is the BIOS/Motherboard... for this kind of device if you disabe the Fast boot in windows 10, the system wont restart properly.... I guess as it comes preactivated by defect nobody has noticed that...... I tested with Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Windows 10 and they have the same behavior. :( :( but when I activated the fast boot again, it fails!! so BINGO!! that is the issue.. not sure how to solve it for Linux systems which are what I primarily use.
Dang, that's a nice deal for a Default device. If only it had 8gb on board otherwise I'd consider belink even if it's $50 on top of that. Also, some nice content you end up producing so I'm definitely leaving a sub.
Thanks! What if I told you I snagged a machine for just under $100 last night that has 12GB of RAM? I don't have it yet, so can't really say much, but the design isn't far off from this one.
Wow, that's a solid steal! Looking forward to hearing more about it, when you got the beast. I wonder what's up with the 6gb division? Like, where the hell did they even get those modules from? Not that rare for VRAM but for RAM I find it interesting.
Memory modules are made up of chips and are now divided in to nice multiples, but that isn't always the case. This just has chips soldered on so they can do things differently. The new one I imagine they will be soldered on too.
Yeah now that I thought about it, they should be using 2GB dies that are slowly going extinct. 4GB modules are too expensive to put at that price point. I remembered one day I was looking if it's possible to reball a 2gb RPi4 with a 4gb chip, and it was but the price of that module was sky high in comparison. But for your new device they should be using 3x4gb modules? Otherwise it would take crap load of real estate of that board :D
Seems like a neat little PC for making into a retro games console or media player. Is that a Lenovo Q190 I see underneath it? I've been using one of them as a media player for about 9 years and it's still going strong.
Interesting. I've been looking at micro PCs and SBCs for DNS, NTP, and other fun things on my network. So much cheaper to buy and maintain... but they seem sketchy for some reason.
I'm really trying to decide if these NUC knockoffs as they are (in the since PC clones were the IBM PC knockoff) are any more risky than the SBCs made by half a dozen companies that are making a fruit named board after the Raspberry Pi. At least with these being x86 you aren't held to an OS image that the board manufacture puts together.
Good luck! I was just recently running mine as a local file server. Swapped it for something silent, now it sits on my desk, taunting me, awaiting a future use.
Update and yes it works, but biggest issue is the eMMC soldered on in my version. Proxmox VE specifically looks for any eMMC and refuses to install even if the presence of an eMMC is detected, even if you are installing to a different drive. Had to install Proxmox VE on SD card of a different computer, connect to an external SD card reader (the built in one would not boot from it), and then edit all the network config for the NIC name and IP configuration. So far working, and the previous Windows 10 Pro copied & restored to a VM using RescueZilla that said it could not upgrade to 11 because of the CPU, now says it can so long as you leave the default Proxmox VE CPU selection and give it 4gb of RAM. The biggest limitation seems to be the 6gb of RAM, but I can run multiple VMs, and if I opt for containers, I can run even more.
Does the RU-vid homepage load smoothly? I'd like to know how the webpages with heavy graphics loading. Some Windows 11 tablets (particularly the Asus vivobook 13 slate with Intel Pentium Silver N6000 cpu) will load the webpages like in a slow motion. This behavior is absolutely unacceptable for a tablet's role. Hope this little PC box will do better in this regard. I don't know. Thank you for the review.
RU-vid homepage seems to load okay. Not as fast as my normal desktop, but nothing like you are describing. I also am using Ethernet. As for graphic heavy, I pulled up Fox News and CNN and things load up fast enough. If you scroll like a sane person the pictures load before you get there, but if you're crazy like me and scroll from top to bottom it takes a second or two for the pictures to come in. It is also in part how they page is coded to not retrieve some items until needed.
Also there is one thing slightly annoying thing about this little box: the fan noise. No matter what temperature the CPU is running at, the fan kicks in sooner rather than later and while it is not the loudest thing in the world, it is loud enough to bother me (YMMV). Obviously if it is used as a headless PC in a storage room then no one cares about the fan.
Cloudready should rock on this. I guess it's ChromeOS flex now. I would suggest testing this is as well since it would be perfect for older parents that have an ancient desktop.
Interesting solution, especially considering the first machine I reviewed actually came with a USB stick with ChromeOS Flex on it. I didn't install it though, in part because I didn't trust that image and I was going to be deploying it as a pfsense machine.
geek bench Isa good idea. I also have a similar mini pc running an i3. no power house at all. I did install mint on it. seemed to like that and installed steam with the Linux patch. it dose alright with some old titles. have you tried any games? I only have 4gb of ddr3 as to your six.
I also was thinking emulation too. Trying to find the right one was a bit taxing, along with getting the rooms to be excepted. Do you have a suggestion? thank you.
@@TimTheFantastic It was -7°F (-21°C) or so here this morning, think it is supposed to be the same tomorrow, so I'm sure that will be the case, even if the room is about 60°F (15.5°C).
