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 […]

Intel Core i7-1165G7 barebone mini PC sells for $455

mini PC with DisplayPort & HDMI

Intel Core i7-1165G7 is one of the most popular Tiger Lake UP3 processors. It’s found in ASRock NUC 1100 BOX Series as well as Intel NUC 11 Enthusiast Phantom Canyon NUC11PHKi7C which Ian (Linuxium) reviewed for us both with Windows 10 and Linux (Ubuntu 20.04). If you’d like a cheaper mini PC with the processor, TOPTON has just launched an Intel Core i7-1165G7 “Mini PC Box”, model number V320, that’s sold for $454.67 with free shipping in barebone configuration. TOPTON V320 mini PC specifications: SoC – Intel Core i7-1165G7 quad-core/octa-thread Tiger Lake UP3 processor @ up to 2.8 GHz / 4.7 GHz (Turbo) with 96EU Iris Xe Graphics; 15W TDP (Configurable between 12 and 28W) System Memory – 2x DDR4-2666 SO-DIMM sockets for up to 64GB RAM Storage – 2x M.2 2280 sockets for two SSD’s, including one PCIe 3.0 x4, and the other with SATA? Video Output HDMI 1.4 […]

Aetina DeviceEdge Mini Edge AI computers support NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM modules

DeviceEdge Mini M1 Jetson modules

NVIDIA Jetson modules offer a wide range of AI performance starting from the entry-level 492 GFLOPS Jetson Nano module up to the 32 TOPS Jetson AGX Xavier platform. That’s probably Aetina decided to offer its DeviceEdge Mini AI edge solution with either Jetson Xavier NX, Jetson Nano, or Jetson TX2 NX pin-compatible SO-DIMM modules designed for applications in smart transportation, factories, retail, healthcare, AIoT, robotics, etc… The three models M1, M2, and M3 can all take the Jetson modules listed above, and come in a very similar form factor with the following key features: Common features: Storage – 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD (default) Video Output – Micro HDMI 1.4 connector Networking – Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, optional WiFi/Bluetooth M.2 module USB – 1x USB Type-C OTG only port Expansion 1x M.2 2242 M-key socket fitted with NVMe SSD 1x M.2 2230 E-key socket for optional Wifi/BT function 1x DB15 male […]

Low-cost AMD Mini PC offered with AMD 3020e APU or Ryzen R1305 embedded processor

Low-cost AMD Mini PC

While there’s a fair amount of AMD mini PC’s, few target the low-cost segment of the market. Maxtang MTN-FP50 offers a cheaper option with either AMD 3020e dual-core APU or AMD Ryzen Embedded R1305 dual-core processor, and pricing starting at around $250 shipped with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage. The mini PC is equipped with two HDMI ports for dual 4K monitor setups, Gigabit Ethernet, five USB 3.0/2.0 ports, and can be upgraded in various ways thanks to SO-DIMM sockets for up to 64GB RAM, M.2 socket for SSD, SATA port for a 2.5-inch drive, and another M.2 slot for the wireless module. Maxtang MTN-FP50 specifications: SoC Mobile processor – AMD 3020E APU with 2-core/2-thread processor @ 1.2GHz / 2.6 GHz (Max Boost frequency, 3x CU Radeon Vega 3 graphics @ 1.0 GHz ; 6W TDP (The manufacturer offers optional AMD 2500U or 3500U 15W processor) Embedded processor – AMD […]