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December 22, 2021February 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 3 Comments

Beelink GTi11 Review – Part 1: Tiger Lake mini PC with Windows 11

Beelink’s GTi11 is the latest offering in their ‘GT’ series of slightly larger mini PCs that are notable for expandable storage configurations together with multiple ports and characterized by including a fingerprint scanner. Featuring Intel’s 11th generation Tiger Lake processors, Beelink kindly sent an i5 version for review which I will undertake in three parts. In this first part, I’ve looked at Windows performance and the second part will cover Ubuntu with the third part looking at various configuration mods. Beelink GTi11 Hardware Overview The GTi11 physically consists of a 168 x 120 x 39mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) rectangular metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s ‘10 nm SuperFin’ Tiger Lake processors and the review model included an i5-1135G7 which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.50 GHz Core processor boosting to 4.20 GHz with Intel’s Xe Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power […]

November 2, 2021June 22, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 19 Comments

Beelink U59 Review – Windows 11, Ubuntu on a Jasper Lake mini PC

Coupling a German submarine with a North American lake seems a perfect match in this topsy-turvy supply-constrained COVID-19 broken world we find ourselves in but that’s just what Beelink has figuratively done by launching their new Intel Jasper Lake mini PC, the U59. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 20.04. Beelink U59 Hardware Overview The Beelink U59 physically consists of a 124 x 113 x 42mm (4.88 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square plastic case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s new 10 nm Jasper Lake N5095 processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz Celeron processor boosting to 2.90 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, dual USB 3.1 ports, a Type-C USB 3.0 port with DisplayPort Alternate Mode, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’. […]

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 15 Comments

Beelink SER3 Review – A good AMD Ryzen 7 mini PC… after tweaks

Beelink has just launched a new mini PC called the SER3. It is another ‘new’ mini PC using an older CPU, in this case, an AMD mobile processor. However, the performance is surprisingly good once a few tweaks are made to the stock configuration. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu together with using an eGPU. Hardware Overview The SER3 physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 40mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.57 inches) square metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses AMD’s older 12 nm Zen+ Ryzen 7 3750H Picasso processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.3 GHz mobile processor boosting to 4.0 GHz with Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, dual USB 3.0 ports, a Type-C USB 3.0 port with Alternate Mode, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a […]

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 5 Comments

MINIX NGC-5 Review – Windows 10, Ubuntu 20.04, and external GPU

MINIX has just launched a new mini PC in their NGC range called the NGC-5. Although it uses a somewhat dated Intel eighth-generation Core i5 processor, the integrated Iris Plus Graphics 655 is notable for being one of the more powerful iGPU solutions. MINIX kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu together with using an eGPU. Hardware Overview The NGC-5 physically consists of a 153 x 153 x 43mm (6.02 x 6.02 x 1.57 inches) square plastic case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s older 14 nm++ Core i5-8279U Coffee Lake processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.40 GHz processor boosting to 4.10 GHz with Intel’s Iris Plus Graphics 655. The front panel has just a LED power indicator whereas the rear panel includes dual gigabit Ethernet ports, dual USB 3.1 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, an HDMI 2.0a port, […]

September 19, 2021April 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

TVMosaic CE (Community Edition) server released as open source by DVBLogic

TVMosaic (formerly DVBLink) TV/PVR-server application has been released as a cross-platform open-source software, following the closure of DVBLink business last year. It used to be a commercial solution with support for digital TV tuners, live TV watching, PVR functions, DLNA, and more, and there was also a PVR client for Kodi that was part of the list of support PVR clients like TvHeadEnd. DVBLogic did not release the full source code due to licensing requirements, and instead, released the code for TVMosaic Community Edition (CE) server on Gitlab under an MIT license. Some of the missing features include: The Licensing engine since the server is now open-source DLNA server TVAdvisor electronic program guide (EPG) DVBLogic TVButler USB tuner support except in Windows TVMosaic is a cross-platform solution and is supposed to work on Windows 7 or higher, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit or higher, Debian 9.1 64-bit or higher, MacOS, 10.12 […]

August 23, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 15 Comments

LIVA Q1L Review – pfSense, Ubuntu 20.04, Windows 10 tested on a dual Ethernet “Ultra Tiny PC”

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) have a series of mini PCs called LIVA which includes the diminutive Q range from which the LIVA Q2 was previously reviewed. Now it is the turn of the LIVA Q1L which although announced over a year ago has just been received for review and the results from various testing are detailed below. Hardware Overview The Q1L physically consists of a 74 x 74 x 34.6 mm (2.91 x 2.91 x 1.36 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC that uses slightly older Apollo Lake processors and the review model came with an N4200 CPU which is a quad-core 4-thread 1.10 GHz processor boosting to 2.50 GHz with Intel’s HD Graphics 505. The front has a power button, two USB 3.2 Gen 1×1 ports, and one USB 2.0 port whilst the rear includes an HDMI port, two gigabit Ethernet ports, and the […]

June 16, 2021June 16, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 9 Comments

GMK NucBox Review – A palm-sized Windows 10 mini PC

GMK released their diminutive mini PC called the NucBox a while ago however they have recently updated the BOM with a new fan and WiFi module together with changing their logo from GMK to GMK TEC. GMK sent the new NucBox for review and the results from various testing are detailed below. Hardware Overview The NucBox physically consists of a 62 x 62 x 42mm (2.44 x 2.44 x 1.65 inches) rectangular metal case with a plastic top and base plate. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s 14 nm J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz processor boosting to 2.70 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics 600. The front has just the power button whilst the rear includes two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and a Type-C USB port for power. The left side has a microSD card slot and a headphone […]

June 1, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 24 Comments

MeLE Quieter2 Review – Windows 10, Ubuntu 20.04, and eGPU

MeLE has recently released a passive mini PC called the Quieter2. What is particularly interesting is that whilst it only has a low-powered Intel Celeron CPU it also supports an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD drive which theoretically makes using an eGPU possible. MeLE provided a 99% discount coupon so that I could purchase one for review and the results from various testing are detailed below. Hardware Overview The Quieter2 physically consists of a 131 x 81 x 18.3mm (5.16 x 3.19 x 0.72 inches) rectangular plastic case with a metal base plate. The top half of the case is finely grooved to mimic the fins of a heat spreader but is made of plastic rather than metal to allow reception to the WiFi antennas as one is directly connected to it. As a passively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s 14 nm J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh processor which is a […]