CHUWI GBOX Pro Review – Intel Atom x7-E3950 mini PC Tested with Windows 10 & Ubuntu 18.04

CHUWI Gbox Pro Review

CHUWI has released a new mini PC called the GBox Pro. This is a passively cooled mini PC that uses the slightly older Apollo Lake Intel Atom x7-E3950 CPU which is a quad core 4-thread 1.60 GHz processor boosting to 2.00 GHz with Intel’s HD Graphics 505. The GBox Pro is somewhat physically larger than typical recent mini PCs and consists of a 189 x 139 x 39 mm (7.44 x 5.47 x 1.54 inches) rectangular case with a front panel that includes the power button, micro SD slot, a couple of USB 3.0 ports and a Type-C USB port and then on the rear, a headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit ethernet port, an HDMI (2.0) port and a VGA interface. The full specifications include: The GBox Pro comes with 64GB of eMMC with pre-installed Windows 10 Home (version 1809 OS build 17763.316) together with 4GB of […]

Intel Introduces 10th Generation Comet Lake Y and U-Series Processors

10th Generation Ice Lake processors for 2-in-1 laptops and tablets, and other low-power devices have just started shipping, but Intel has now launched another 10th generation family, namely Comet Lake, that is also designed for the same type of products. But instead of being manufactured using a 10nm process, Comet Lake processors will rely on Intel’s “highly optimized” 14nm process technology leveraging “improvements in intra-node optimizations”. There will be Y-Series and U-Series like in other low-power high-performance Intel processors with respectively 7W and 15W TDP, and those processors will come as Core i3/i5/i7 parts Intel Comet Lake family is the first to offer a 6-core processor in the U-series family and will provide faster CPU frequencies, faster memory interfaces, support for Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) and Thunderbolt 3.  The new processors are said to deliver up to 16% overall performance gains, and over 41% better productivity and multitasking on Microsoft […]

Gemini Dual Screen Laptop is Made of Two Kay Lake-R Tablets (Crowdfunding)

Gemini Dual Screen Laptop

[Update August 24, 2019:  CNX Software has received a message claiming the project is a scam (identity theft): This is Li Yunjian, the Owner of following company : GST Communication Co., Ltd (Hongkong) 深圳市杰仕特通讯有限公司 (China Mainland) Our Website on Alibaba: https://chinagstgroup.en.alibaba.com/ This is a fraudster illegally using our company information to scam ] [Update October 2, 2019: Gemini Dual Screen Laptop crowdfunding campaign is up again, but references to “GST Communication” are gone] Note by CNXSoft: The campaign is under review and they have stopped taking contributions. I can only assume it’s a trademark issue because Intel did not like them to use the name “Gemini”. If it’s indeed the case, It should be resolved with a new name. We’ll remove this notice when/if the campaign comes back online. The Chinese company GST has been running a crowdfunding campaign for the Gemini, a dual-screen laptop, with the ability to be […]

Samsung Galaxy Book S Snapdragon 8cx Laptop to Launch soon for $1,000

Snapdragon 8cx laptop

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx was announced as the first Snapdragon processor specifically designed for connected mobile PCs (aka laptops with cellular connectivity) last December. Earlier this year we got confirmation 8cx would support 5G connectivity as an option, and in May, we got news Lenovo Limitless 5G laptop was coming and got some benchmarks showing Snapdragon 8cx with performance similar to an Intel Core i5 Kaby Lake-R processor (15 Watt TDP) while offering much longer battery life. It’s Samsung turn to announce their Snapdragon 8cx laptop with Samsung Galaxy Book S that will be available this fall for $999 and up. Samsung Galaxy Book S specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform with eight 64-bit Armv8 cores in two clusters: Kryo 495 Gold cores (Cortex-A76 class) @ 2.84 GHz + Kryo 495  cores (Cortex-A55 class) @ 1.8GHz ; 7nm process; 7W TDP System Memory – 8GB RAM (LPDDR4X) Storage – […]

Beelink L55 Review – An Intel Core i3-5005U Mini PC Tested with Windows 10 & Ubuntu 18.04

Beelink L55 Review

With the shortage of Gemini Lake processors, some manufacturers have taken to releasing new mini PCs using older CPUs. The Beelink L55 is one such example and uses Intel’s Broadwell I3-5005U CPU which is a dual-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz processor with Intel’s HD Graphics 5500. The L55 is a ‘NUC’ style mini PC and physically consists of a 128 x 126 x 46 mm (5.04 x 4.96 x 1.81 inches) box case with a front panel that includes the power button, a headphone jack and a couple of 3.0 USB ports and then on the rear, two more 3.0 USBs, two 2.1 USBs, HDMI (1.4), DP and two gigabit Ethernet ports. Note that there is no SD or micro SD card slot. The full specifications include: The L55 comes with either a 256GB or 512GB (as tested in this review) M.2 SSD with pre-installed Windows 10 Home version 1809 together […]

Chatreey AC1-Z Low Power Fanless Mini PC Goes for $153 and Up

The Chatreey AC1-Z mini PC is running either the Intel Celeron Apollo Lake J3455 and the Intel Celeron Gemini Lake J4105 and boasts a full complement of features and SoC peripherals. It closely resembles the series of mini computers similar to the Zotac Nano mini PC. The Chatreey AC1-Z is a silent, fanless mini-PC that offers 4GB RAM, 4K resolution across two display inputs, and housing either the Apollo Lake or the Gemini Lake processors.  The Gemini Lake version has a choice of up to 64GB eMMC storage and offers a drive bay for an optional 2.5 SSD or SATA HDD. I/O 2x USB 3.0 Type A, 2x USB 2.0 Type A 1x LAN 1x Micro SD 1x Audio 3.5 mm 2x HDMI Features Power Button Kensington Lock Power Connector (12V 2.5A) Dual-band WIFI /WLAN 802.11ac+BT The AC1–Z system is inspired by other mini-PC models and carries a lot of […]

XIDU PhilPad 2-in-1 Hybrid 2K Laptop Review

XIDU PhilPad Review

I had never heard about XIDU laptops and tablets, and it’s apparently the brand name of “Shenzhen Baohuazhong Co Limited” that was founded in 2014 and specializes in the design, development, manufacturing, distributions, and support for computer systems. I came to know about the company as they approached me to review one of their laptops, namely XIDU PhilPad XT133A model with an Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core Apollo Lake processor coupled with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, and equipped with a 13.3″ touchscreen display with 2K (2560×1440) resolution. XIDU PhilPad Specifications SoC – Intel Celeron N3350 dual core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.10 GHz / 2.40 GHz (Turbo) with 12EU Intel HD graphics 500 GPU; 6W TDP System Memory – 6GB DDR3 Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Display – 13.3″ touchscreen IPS display with 2560 x 1440 resolution Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, built-in microphone and speaker Camera […]

$30 FireAnt Development Board Features Efinix Trion T8 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

FireAnt Trion T8 FPGA Board

When I think FPGA, company names such as Xilinx, Altera (now Intel), or even Microsemi come to my mind. But there are also other companies such as Anlogic or Lattice Semi that offer FPGA chips. Today I’ve come across another FPGA silicon vendor, namely Efinix, with their Trion T8 FPGA found in XIPS Technology’s tiny FireAnt development board targeting makers and hardware designers. FireAnt specifications: FPGA – Efinix Trion T8 (T8F81C2) with 7384x LE counts, 8x embedded multipliers, 1x low-power oscillator, 1x PLL, 122.88 kbit internal RAM; Package – BGA-81 (5×5 mm) Storage – 8 Mbit serial NOR Flash Expansion – 2x 20-pin headers (soldered or unpopulated) with up to 35 GPIOs Debugging & Programming Micro USB 2.0 port via FTDI FT232HQ USB to serial chip JTAG signals in bottom layer Misc – Onboard 33.333 MHz crystal oscillator for PLL; 6x LEDs including 4 user configurable; 3x buttons (Reset, BTN1, […]

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