This morning I’ve received MINIX NGC-1 Intel Braswell fanless mini PC, so I’ve taken a few pictures of the device and its accessories, before starting testing the performance and reliability of this low power computer.
Contrary to the black, gray and green packages I’ve come across for their Android TV box, MINIX has gone blue with their latest Intel mini PC’s package.
The product announcements mentioned both Windows 10 and Ubuntu support, and I’ve received the Windows 10 Edition, which hopefully means there will also be a Ubuntu edition.
Beside the mini PC, the package includes two external WiFi antenna, an HDMI cable, a 12V/3A power supply and corresponding power cord, as well as a multi-language setup guide, and MINIX product brochure.
The power supply should work anywhere in the world as it takes 100-240V/1A input @ 50 or 60 Hz.
NGC-1 is very similar to the one used for MINIX Android TV boxes, except the company replaced the usual black color, by silver, and obviously the ports are quite different.
The front panel features the power button with three USB 3.0 host ports, one side comes with two antenna connectors and a Kensington lock, while the rear panel includes a 3.5mm audio jack, mini DisplayPort and HDMI video output, optical S/PDIF, Gigabit Ethernet, and the power jack.
At this stage, I would normally teardown the device, and in theory you’d just need to remove the four sticky pads on the bottom of the device, loosen the four screws, and pop the cover out.
Sadly, none of my screwdrivers and screwdriver bits would allow me to actually do that, so I had to skip. So the next step will be actually run Windows 10 to test the device capabilities.
MINIX NGC-1 pre-sales will start on February 12, 2016 for $399.90 in North America, 399.90 Euros in Europe, and 299.90 GBP in the United Kingdom.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
So the price got confirmed as rediculous(!) high. Do they try to be apple?
I recently built an HTPC with AMD A10 / 8GB RAM / 1TB HD and it cost me less than that. With that price its a no go.
Does it boot headless? Minix Z64 required an HDMI connection to boot ( or an HDMI dummy plug)
overpriced, same configuration from ASRock for beebox at half price and apple imac mini is also available at 499 usd
For most, does the 3150 really make sense? The atom X5-Z8500/8700 would be a much better solution for most, much cheaper and with better performance. As long as you don’t need virtualization. And the price is horrendous.
Give us a Z8500/Z8700 with 4GB RAM and an M.2 port… at the right price level
@Tore
It would require some extra chips to support M.2 on Cherry Trail processor, adding to the cost. How much I don’t know.
Gigabit, and 802.11ac also need to be implemented with PCIe or USB 3.0, so you’d probably become limited to one USB 3.0 port.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Actually, Cherry Trail wouldn’t need extra chips to support PCIe M.2 drives, but you’d only get a single lane of PCIe 2.0 bandwidth, which would make it as fast as using a mini PCIe SSD. What you’d need is UEFI support which I think the platform lacks, especially as it doesn’t support SATA drives to start with and booting from eMMC is a bit different than booting from a SATA/PCIe storage device.
@Phil
I can remove the HDMI cable, and the device will still boot.
Intel Core i5 4200Y 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD ~$233:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cheapest-i5-i3-Mini-PC-Windows-10-Barebone-Computador-TV-Box-Intel-Core-i5-4200Y-4K/32486608209.html
Or N3150 variant ~$221
Well I send you 200€ right away for the device 😉 hehe 😉
@Gabe
That was great info! Thank you.
One explanation about the price is the cost of the Windows 10 OS license that is around US$85 (80 Euro), so they don’t get the same deal as on Bay Trail devices… The other reasons are the metal case, as well as components selected (Samsung DDR3L RAM, Toshiba MLC SSD, Intel AC3165).
The Ubuntu version has not been confirmed.
I think I may have an issue with my sample. It’s really sluggish, and I often have “Window not responding”.
It looks like the CPU is stuck at 0.22 or 0.24 GHz… I wonder what may cause that!
Holy fuck, 399? MINIX is out of their damn mind lately. Long live Voyo V3!!
3DMark results
First time: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10601134
Second time: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10601756
Something is very wrong.. as it’s much lower than
Tronsmart Ara X5 (Atom x5-Z8300) -> http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8330290
or even
MeLE PCG01 (Intel Atom Z3735F) -> http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8330992
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Yes, it’s expensive & buggy crap, that’s what is wrong.