Acer Spin 1 Apollo Lake Laptops to Sell for $250 and Up

Acer has launched a tidal wave of products at IFA 2016, including their 64-bit ARM Chromebook R13, and beside the many Intel Core laptops, the company also announced Acer Spin 1 laptop models powered by the new low-power Intel Apollo Lake processors. Acer Spin 1 (SP111-31) specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium / Celeron Apollo Lake processors. Unnamed, but most likely N series: N3350, N3450, or/and N4200. System Memory – Up to 8GB RAM Storage – Up to 64GB eMMC or up to 1TB HDD Display – 11.6” or 13.3″ IPS Display with Corning AntiMicrobial Glass 5; resolutions: 1366×768 or 1920×1080 Misc – Optional Acer Active Pen with Microsoft Ink Battery – Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life Dimensions – 11.6″ model(s):  29.7 cm x 21.1 cm x 2 cm Weight – 11.6″ model(s): 1.5 kg Acer Spin 1 will first be available in China in October for ¥2,999 and […]

Intel Introduces 6 Apollo Lake Processors: Celeron N3350, N3450, J3355, J3455, and Pentium N4200 & J4205

Intel has been talking about Apollo Lake processor family, successor of Braswell family, and even showcased some Apollo Lake NUCs, but AFAIK, so far the company did not actually disclose any part numbers for the new processors. That has changed since Intel has now listed 6 “Formerly Apollo Lake” Celeron and Pentium processors on their website. There are three processor for mobile (read laptop) devices (Nxxx parts), and three for desktop (Jxxx parts): For tablets, notebooks, 2-in-1 hybrids: Celeron N3350 dual core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.4 GHz (Burst frequency) and 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 650 MHz (Burst freq.); 6W TDP Celeron N3450 quad core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz (Burst frequency) and 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 700 MHz (Burst freq.); 6W TDP Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.5 GHz (Burst […]

Improve YouTube Video Playback on Low Power Intel mini PCs by Disabling VP9 Support in Chrome or Firefox

I’ve been reviewing several Intel Bay Trail, Cherry Trail, and Braswell mini PCs in the last year or so, and I always end up recommending Microsoft Edge browser over Firefox or Chrome for people wanting to watch YouTube videos, as the last two browsers always drop many frames with the video stuttering regularly. However I noticed that while Edge is playing  MP4/AVC (H.264) video, the other two browser would normally stream WebM/VP9 videos, and it could be the cause of the problem as H.264 can be hardware accelerated, but VP9 not, and the low power processor might not quite powerful enough to handle 1080p VP9 video decoding smoothly. So I investigated the issues with Vorke V1 mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron J3160 processor (6W TDP) with the three browsers by first checking enabled codecs in YouTube HTML5 page. Microsoft Edge has both VP8 and VP9 disabled When I […]

Axiomtek Braswell pico-ITX Board Fearures Pentium N3710 or Celeron N3060 Processor

Axiomtek has just announced PICO300 pico-ITX board, an update of their PICO842 board replacing Bay Trail processors by Braswell ones. The board supports either Intel Pentium N3710 or Celeron N3060 processors with up to 8 GB memory via a SO-DIMM socket, and includes HDMI or VGA, SATA and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces among others. Axiomtek PICO300 pico-ITX motherboard specifications: SoC Intel Celeron N3060 dual core processor @  1.6 / 2.48 GHz with 12 EU Intel HD Graphics 400 @ up to 600 MHz (6W TDP) OR Intel Pentium N3710 quad core processor @  1.6 / 2.56 GHz with 16 EU Intel HD Graphics 405 @ up to 700 MHz (6W TDP) System Memory – 1x 204-pin SO-DIMM DDR3L-1600 up to 8GB Storage – 1x SATA-600, 1x mSATA (shared with PCIe mini card) Video Output – 1x LVDS, and 1x HDMI or 1x VGA Audio – MIC-in/Line-out; Realtek ACL662 audio codec Connectivity […]

ECS previews Intel Apollo Lake based Liva-Z mini PC at Computex 2016

If anything is clear from having walked around this year’s Computex, then it is that the mini PC is here to stay. Beyond plenty of socketed boards using Intel’s new STX form factor from just about every vendor, there are also plenty of other mini PC’s on display. One that caught our eye at the show was ECS’ new Liva, tentatively named the Z. The following specifications were revealed by ECS: SoC – Intel Apollo Lake System Memory –  2x DDR3L SO-DIMM’s Storage – 32GB/64GB eMMC flash + 1x M.2 2280 for SSD (unclear if it supports PCIe drives) Video Output – Mini DisplayPort, HDMI (no revisions mentioned) Audio – DisplayPort, HDMI and 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-C, 3x USB 3.0 ports Power Supply – 19V/2.1A It’s so far the only Intel Apollo Lake system we’ve […]

HP Chromebook 13 G1 Features Skylake Pentium or Core M Processor, 4 to 16GB RAM, and a 3200×1800 Display for $499 and Up

HP Chromebook 13 G1 is the middle ground between Google’s $1000 Chromebook Pixel and the cheap Rockchip RK3288 chromebooks, thanks to a choice of low power Skylake Core M processor,  plenty of memory, and for people who loathe 1366×768, or even 1920×1080 displays, a 13.3″ display with 3200×1800 resolution. HP Chromebook 13 G1 specifications: SoC (four options) Intel Pentium 4405Y dual core / quad thread processor @ 1.5 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU @ 300/800 MHz (TDP: 6W) Intel Core m3-6Y30 dual core / quad thread processor @ 900 / 2.2 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU @ 300/850 MHz (TDP: 4.5W) Intel Core m5-6Y57  dual core / quad thread processor @ 1.1 / 2.8 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU @ 300/900 MHz (TDP: 4.5W) Intel Core m7-6Y75 dual core / quad thread processor @ 1.2 / 3.1 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU @ […]

Mini PCs and Cloudbooks Powered by Intel Apollo Lake Pentium and Celeron Processors, Successors of Braswell SoCs, are Expected in H2 2016

Intel released a presentation entitled “Design Considerations and Reference Designs for Entry, Value and Mainstream PCs” at IDF 2016 Shenzhen, explaining the company vision about low power laptops and mini PCs. At the core of those devices will be “Apollo Lake” Pentium and Celeron Processors with 6 to 10W TDP replacing Braswell processors with better CPU and graphics performance, lower power consumption, and low overall BoM cost. Beside mini PCs, the processors will also find their way into what Intel calls Cloudbooks, some sort of laptops with 2 to 4GB RAM, 32 to 64GB storage, no hard drive, and displays whose size ranges from 11.6″ to 14″. So it looks like Cloudbooks may be the new Netbooks, with better performance and larger displays. Cost savings on the mainboard are achieved thanks to the integration of many features (Signal Processor, SD Card bridge chip, Spead Spectrum Clock…), low power consumption leading […]

SolidRun Introduces Intel Braswell MicroSoMs, and SolidPC Q4 Carrier Board

SolidRun has been making ARM based MicroSoMs –  tiny system-on-module – for a while, and integrated them in many of their boards such as HummindBoard Edge or ClearFog Pro, and now the company has packed Intel Braswell processors into 52.8 x 40mm MicroSoMs that can be plugged into SolidPC Q4 carrier board. Two Braswell MicroSoM module have been designed so far: SoM IB8000 and SoM IB3710, which beside having different SoCs, and memory options share most of the same specifications: SoC SoM IB8000 – Intel Atom x5-E8000 quad core processor @ 1.04 / 2.0 GHz with 12EU Intel HD graphics @ 320/600 MHz (5W TDP) SoM IB3710 – Intel Pentium N3710 quad core processor @ 1.6 / 2.56 GHz with 16EU Intel HD graphics 405 @ 400/700 MHz (6W TDP) System Memory SoM IB8000 – 1GB (single channel), 2GB, 4GB or 8GB (dual channel) SoM IB3710 – Up to 8GB (default size) […]