Vecow EAC-2000 fanless embedded system is powered by NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX

Vecow EAC-2000 fanless embedded-system-NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX

Vecow  Vecow EAC-2000 series fanless embedded system features NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX module for the deployment of AI vision and industrial applications including traffic vision, intelligent surveillance, auto optical inspection, Smart Factory, AMR/AGV, and other AIoT/Industry 4.0 applications. The computer comes with up to four Fakra-Z connectors to connect GMSL cameras,  as well as four Gigabit Ethernet ports, two of which with PoE+ support, takes 9V to 50V wide range DC input, and can operate in a wide temperature range from -25°C to 70°C. Two models part of Vecow EAC-2000 embedded system family are currently offered with the following specifications: System-on-Module – NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX with CPU – 6-core NVIDIA Carmel ARM v8.2 64-bit CPU GPU -384-core NVIDIA Volta GPU with 48 Tensor Cores DL Accelerator -2x NVDLA Engines System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4x DRAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash Storage – M.2 Key M Socket (2280) for SSD, […]

AMD Athlon 300U powered AM02 Mini PC goes for $240 and up

AM02 mini PC

It’s not that easy to find a relatively low-cost AMD mini PC, and there are more choices on Intel’s side.  Most models around $250-$300 are barebone without memory or storage, but AM02 mini PC may be an interesting option as the AMD Athlon 300U powered computer sells for about $240 plus shipping with 8GB RAM and a 128GB SSD, which looks to be an even better option than the Maxtang MTN-FP50 mini PC we reported on last June. All AM02 models ship with Windows 10 by default, but you may be able to ask the seller to install Linux instead (TBC), and support up to 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Note that the seller apparently made a mistake with the 16GB/256GB model, as it is sold for just $232.89, instead of $332.89. It might still be worth a try 🙂 AM02 specifications: SoC – AMD Athlon 300U dual-core/quad-thread processor @ […]

Station M2 business-card sized Android 11 mini PC, also supports Ubuntu & Buildroot

Business card-sized mini PC

After introducing Station P2 Rockchip RK3568 mini PC in March of this year, Firefly has now launched another, cheaper model with the ultra-thin Station M2 computer based on the company’s ROC-RK3566-PC single board computer equipped with Rockchip RK3566 SoC. Station M2 is only slightly larger than a business card, but packs up to 8GB RAM, M.2 SSD storage, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Station M2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 with a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8GHz. Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2. OpenCL 2.0. Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4K H.265/H.265/VP9 video decoder, 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoder. System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 (8GB optional) Storage – 32GB or 64GB (128GB eMMC optional), M.2 PCIe 2.0 socket for 2242 NVMe SSD, MicroSD card socket Video Output – 1x HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

ASRock Industrial announces Intel Elkhart Lake mini PCs and motherboards

Intel Atom x6000E Series, Celeron, and Pentium Elkhart Lake processors for IoT Edge applications were launched in September 2020, with many companies shortly introducing modules, single board computers, motherboards, and industrial, rugged mini PCs after the official announcement. ASRock Industrial took more time to announce their Elkhart Lake offerings, with three families of hardware platforms with NUC 6000 BOX Series and IBOX 6000 Series mini PCs, as well as NUC 6000 Motherboard series. We’ll have a look at the three families in detail below, mostly using information from products based on Celeron J6412, one of the more recent Elkhart Lake processors that was launched in Q1 2021. ASRock NUC 6000 Motherboard Series Specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron J6412 quad-core processor @ 2.0/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 EU Intel UHD Graphics; 10W TDP Intel Celeron N6210 dual-core processor @ 1.2/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 […]

Windows 11 announced with widgets, Android apps support, new system requirements

Windows 11 release

As expected, Microsoft has formally announced Windows 11 operating system that’s basically Windows 10 with a new look, and some extra features such as Snap Layouts, Snap Groups, and Desktops to further improve the multitasking experience. Snap Layouts and Snap Groups will allow you to select pre-defined layouts to quickly arrange windows as you see fit, and you can define multiple “Desktops” for work, gaming, or school, etc… Other changes include Chat from Microsoft Teams integrated into the taskbar, new gaming features such as DirectX 12 Ultimate, Direct Storage for faster loading, or Auto HDR, a new Microsoft Store with support for Android apps through the Amazon Appstore, and AI-powered widgets to display useful information like calendar, weather, news, stock quotes, etc… There are also features that have become deprecated or pushed to the wayside with, for example, Cortana not used anymore during installation and not pinned to the taskbar, […]

RasPad 3 Review – Part 2: A Raspberry Pi 4 mini PC with integrated display

Raspad 3 review

I started RasPad 3 review last week with an unboxing of the tablet shell for Raspberry Pi 4, together with assembly instructions, and a first boot after flashing Raspad OS to the system. In the first part of the review, I mentioned that I’d probably focus the remainder of the review on Ezblock Studio visual programming IDE, as the rest of the software is almost the same as using a standard Raspberry Pi 4, the other difference being the touchscreen-friendly RasPad launcher. But Sunfounder explained to me it would be hard to check out Ezblock as it’s designed to control robots and other hardware platforms, and requires an extra HAT (see Kickstarter campaign) to allow the Ezblock APP to connect through Bluetooth (it cannot be directly linked to Raspberry Pi through the built-in Bluetooth).  Here’s an example of a robot that is compatible with Ezblock Studio: Picar-X. Finally, I was […]

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

GMK NucBox Power Adapter

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 […]

GMK NucBox2 Review – Windows 10, Unraid OS on a Coffee Lake mini PC

GMK NucBox2 Review

Karl here. Today we are going to look at a mini PC. It is by GMK. GMK’s first foray looks to be the NucBox, a super tiny mini pc. I would call the NucBox2 its older, bigger, more capable brother. What stood out to me was the M.2 4x NVMe slot. I don’t anticipate a superfast SSD to come with the NucBox2 but we will see. The NucBox2 only had one 8 GB stick of memory and I had an extra stick laying around so I installed it to get dual-channel support. I think they are doing this mini PC a disservice using memory in single-channel mode. A quick Google search shows an 8GB stick is about $50 and I would highly recommend this upgrade. Notable Specs Processor – Intel Core i5-8259U 4-core/8-thread Coffee Lake processor 802.11 AC WiFI M.2 NVMe 256 GB SSD (Netac) 8GB memory single-channel Gig Ethernet […]