Making a DIY 10.1-inch All-in-One PC out of AMR5 Ryzen 5 gaming mini PC

Ryzen 5 mini PC all in one computer

Hey Karl here. The first thing I need to do is thank the manufacturer of the brand Ace Magician for sending over a unit of their AMR5 gaming mini PC to more or less play with. I did a tiny bit of benchmarking along the way. This is the last time you will see the system in this state 😀 Story time. I have been really wanting a Steam Deck. But we purchased a Nintendo Switch about a year ago and it has barely been used. As soon as my son picked it up he asked why it was so laggy and has shown very little interest in it. So that got me worried about purchasing essentially a one-trick device. There have been a couple of good attempts at a DIY Steam Deck and I wanted to experiment with a small form factor. I went into this with a general […]

OPS-compliant digital signage player features Amlogic S905X3 CPU (Sponsored)

DataMax DM29 Android OPS mini PC

DataMax DM29 is a digital signage player and mini PC compliant with the OPS (Open Pluggable Specification) standard and powered by an Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor coupled with 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. The Android 9 system also features an HDMI 2.1 port capable of up to 4Kp60 video output, Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi, and 3G or 4G LTE cellular connectivity, as well as a pair of USB 3.0 ports. The system can be powered from an OPS-compliant display or via PoE. DataMax DM29 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.9 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, OpenCL 2.0 System Memory – 4GB dual-channel LPDDR4 or DDR3 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket, M.2 SSD socket Video & audio output – HDMI 2.1 up to 1080p120 or 4Kp60 Video Decoding – 10-bit H.265, VP9, […]

Beelink U59 Pro review – A Jasper Lake mini PC with faster GPU performance

Beelink U59 Pro review

Beelink’s newly launched U59 Pro addresses the weak graphical performance offered by the original Beelink U59, which we also noticed in the Beelink MINI S, and was a direct result of the iGPU limitations. By simply upgrading the CPU from a ‘desktop’ to ‘mobile’ Celeron processor the iGPU received a fifty percent boost in execution units. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu. Beelink U59 Pro Hardware Overview The Beelink U59 Pro physically consists of a 124 x 113 x 42mm (4.88 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square plastic case. As before it is an actively cooled mini PC but now uses Intel’s 10 nm Jasper Lake N5105 processor which is the same quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz Celeron processor boosting to 2.90 GHz but with improved Intel’s UHD Graphics as the ‘Graphics Burst Frequency’ increases from 750 MHz to 800 MHz […]

Beelink SER5 Review – An AMD Ryzen 5 5600H mini PC tested with Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04

Beelink ser5 review

New to arrive in the Beelink SER lineup is the SER5 marketed as a ‘SER PRO’ and features one of last year’s AMD Ryzen 5000 H-series processors typically used in high-performance productivity and gaming laptops. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. Beelink SER5 Hardware Overview The Beelink SER5 physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 42mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses AMD’s 7 nm Zen 3 Ryzen 5 5600H Cezanne processor which is a six-core 12-thread 3.3 GHz mobile processor boosting to 4.2 GHz with Radeon Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a Type-C USB 3.1 port with Alternate Mode, dual USB 3.1 ports, and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’.  The rear panel includes a gigabit Ethernet port, […]

ACTAMID M8S – An Intel Pentium N6005 palm-sized PC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, 3x HDMI ports (Crowdfunding)

ACTAMID M8S

ACTAMID M8S is a palm-sized 3.4-inch mini PC powered by an Intel Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake processor with up to 16GB LPDDR4 memory, 1TB M.2 2242 SSD. The M8S is bigger than the recently announced 2.7-inch PIX NII mini PC based on the same processor, but that’s for a good reason since it offers more ports with three HDMI outputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and three USB 3.0 ports. The mini PC also features WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, a quiet fan, and a 7-color LED backlight for good effects… Win Element Technology Co., Ltd, the Hong Kong company owning the ACTAMID brand, says the mini PC ships preinstalled with an activated version of Windows 11, but also supports Linux distributions such as Ubuntu 20.04. ACTAMID M8S specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics @ up to 900 MHz; […]

Firefly Station M3 – A Rockchip RK3588S mini PC with up to 16GB RAM

Rockchip RK3588S mini PC

Firefly Station M3 is a mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor, the cost-down version of the RK3588, and equipped with up to 16GB RAM, 128GB eMMC flash storage, support for M.2 SATA and NVMe SSD, 8K capable HDMI and DisplayPort (USB-C) video outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, and more. The new model follows the Station M1 and Station M2 mini PCs with Rockchip RK3328 and RK3566 respectively and will deliver 4 times the CPU performance and up to 8 times the 3D graphics performance compared to the M2 model, but in a slightly larger and about twice as thick enclosure – probably for active cooling – than the first two Station M fanless mini PCs. Firefly Station M3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, Arm Mali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL […]

ZOTAC ZBOX PI336 PICO mini PC gets an Elkhart Lake upgrade with Intel Celeron N6211

The last time we wrote about the ZOTAC ZBOX PICO PI336 mini PC it featured an Intel Celeron N4100 Gemini Lake processor, but the company appears to have launched an upgrade with an Intel Celeron N6211 Elkhart Lake processor instead. The new ZBOX PI336 PICO fanless mini PC also gets more storage up to 128GB eMMC flash, but the rest of the specifications remain pretty much the same with 4GB RAM, HDMI & DisplayPort video outputs, three USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI, and Bluetooth, although some of the interfaces got a version bump for additional performance. ZOTAC PI336 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N6211 dual-core Elkhart Lake processor up to 1.2/3.0 GHz with 16EU Intel UHD Graphics @ up to 750 MHz; 6.5W TDP System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4x 3200MT/s Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket Display HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160 @ 60Hz DisplayPort 1.4 up to […]

GOLE1 Pro mini PC comes with 5.5-inch touch screen display, Gemini Lake processor (Crowdfunding)

GOLE1 was quite a unique mini PC when it launched in 2016 as it included a 5-inch touchscreen display. HIGOLE is now back with the GOLE1 Pro based on a similar design, but a slightly larger 5.5-inch touchscreen display, and much better specs suitable for 2022’s software and entry-level use cases. The Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” processor found in the original device gives way to an Intel Celeron N4200 or J4125 Gemini Lake processor, and the GOLE1 Pro mini PC, which the company sometimes also calls “HIGOLE PC 2022”, comes with up to 8GB LPDDR4X, a 128GB SSD, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 6 or 5, four USB 3.0 ports, and more. GOLE1 Pro specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core processor @ 2.00 GHz / 2.70 GHz (Turbo) / 2.4 GHz (Turbo all cores) with 12EU Intel UHD Graphics 600 @ 250 MHz / 750 MHz (Turbo); 10W […]