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GEEKOM A7 mini PC review – Part 1: Specs, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

GEEKOM A7 is a compact mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS (or Ryzen 7 7840HS) processor with up to 64GB DDR5, up to a 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD, four 4K capable video outputs, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E connectivity, and six USB ports for expansion. The company sent us a sample of the GEEKOM A7 with an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU, 32GB DDR5, and 2TB SSD for review. We’ll do a three-part review starting by listing the specifications, checking out the hardware design and accessories, and quickly trying it in the first part of the review, before testing both Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 in detail in a few weeks. GEEKOM A7 specifications SoC (one or the other) AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core/16-thread processor up to 4.0GHz with 16MB cache, AMD Radeon 780M Graphics; TDP: 35 to 54W AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-core/16-thread […]

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GEEKOM Mini IT12 review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro tested on an Intel Core i7-12650H Alder Lake mini PC

We first checked out the GEEKOM Mini IT12 with an unboxing and teardown of the Intel Core i7-12650H Alder Lake mini PC in the middle of December 2023, and we’ve now had plenty of time to test the mini PC with Windows 11 Pro since the device was out of stock for a while and we were asked to postpone the review… Now that the mini PC is for sale again, we will report our experience with the Windows 11 Pro operating system in the second part of the review of the Mini IT12. This will include an overview of the software, features testing, various benchmarks including storage and networking performance, 4K and 8K YouTube video streaming, cooling performance, fan noise, and finally, we will provide some power consumption numbers. Software overview and features testing The System->About menu wrongly shows we have a “Mini Air12” mini PC instead of a […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H mini PC review – Part 1: unboxing, teardown, and first boot

Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H is a Windows 11 Pro mini PC powered by an Intel Core i7-12650H Alder Lake-H processor coupled with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, up to 2TB of M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and various ports such as HDMI 2.0 video output, USB Type-C and Type-A ports, gigabit Ethernet, as well as a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module. Shenzhen AZW Technology, the company behind the Beelink brand, sent us the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H mini PC with 32GB DDR4 RAM and a 500GB M.2 SSD 500 GB for review. In the first part of the review, we’ll check out the specifications, before going through an unboxing and a teardown, and checking whether it boots to Windows 11 Pro as expected. We’ll then work on detailed reviews with both  Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 in the next few weeks. Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H specifications SoC – […]

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Maxtang MTN-FP750 review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro on an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS mini PC

In the first part of the Maxtang MTN-FP750 mini PC review, we looked at the hardware with an unboxing, a teardown, and a first boot to the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro.  We’ve now spent more time testing the Maxtang MTN-FP750, also called NUC-7735HS-A16, and we will report our experience with the AMD Ryzen 7 7735H mini PC in Windows 11 Pro with a software overview, features testing, benchmarks, storage and network performance testing, cooling performance, fan noise, power consumption, and more. Software overview and feature testing The Maxtang MTN-FP750 shipped with Windows 11 Pro 22H2, but we updated it to 23H2 (and somehow entered the Windows Insider program) before starting our test. The System->About window confirms the update and that we have an FP750 PC powered by a 3.2 GHz AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS SoC with 32GB of RAM. HWiNFO64  provides some details about the AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS 8-core/16-thread […]

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Chatreey AM08 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro

I checked out the hardware of the Chatreey AM08 Pro mini PC using an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU with an unboxing, a teardown, and the first boot in the first part of the review. Now it’s time for the 2nd part which will focus on Windows 11 Pro testing on the AM08 Pro. As previously said, I have received a version with a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, which I have replaced with a 1TB Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD, so a Windows 11 reinstall was needed (I could also use Linux and dd one drive to another, but I had a Windows 11 ISO). Since the installation lacks a WiFi driver,  I had to use the command oobe\BypassNRO to complete the installation. You can skip that step if you connect an Ethernet cable. The license was activated after connection to the Internet, so reinstallation is not a problem. Table […]

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Review of Blackview MP80 (Processor N97) mini PC with Windows 11 Pro

Blackview MP80 is a tiny pocket-sized mini PC powered by either an Intel Alder Lake-N Processor N95 or Processor N97 CPU with 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB M.2 SSD preloaded with Windows 11 Pro. We’ve already reviewed the Blackview MP80 (N95) mini PC a few months ago, but the company has now sent us the Processor N97 model for review. Both models look identical with the same ports including three HDMI 2.0 video outputs, three USB ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports, plus a Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless module. The mini PCs are also actively cooled, and the only obvious differences are the processor (Intel N95 vs N97) and the color of the enclosure. We usually do a three-part review with the first one listing the specs, and going through an unboxing and a teardown, but for the Blackview MP80 (N97) review we will do those and […]

Intel Arc Graphics Technology
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Review of GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC with Windows 11 Pro (Part 2)

We’ve already done an unboxing and teardown of the GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC in the first part of the review and we’ve now had time to test Windows 11 Pro on the Intel Processor N100 mini PC equipped with 16GB SO-DIMM DDR5 and a 512GB M.2 SSD. Despite the low-end processor, the mini PC boots quite fast and it’s perfectly usable to browse the web, play YouTube videos, and perform other tasks like office work and photo editing. In part 2 of the review, we’ll test Windows 11 Pro thoroughly with a software overview, features testing, benchmarks, storage and network performance tests, thermal performance, fan noise, and power consumption of GEEKOM Mini Air12. Software overview and features testing Going to System->About in the Windows settings confirms we have a Mini Air12 mini PC powered by an 800 MHz (based frequency) Intel Processor N100 CPU, with 16GB of RAM, and […]

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How to use a monitor and USB mouse/keyboard in Promox VE on an Intel Alder Lake-N mini PC

We’ve started to see several Alder Lake-N platforms acting both as a mini PC and a router or network appliance with products such as iKOOLCORE R2 or CWWK x86-P5 which features not only the usual HDMI, USB, and single Ethernet port, but come with multiple Ethernet ports making them ideal to run Proxmox VE to simultaneous run a desktop OS such as Ubuntu 22.04 or Windows 11 and a headless network OS such as pfSense or OpenWrt. I’m currently reviewing iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC that comes with four 2.5GbE ports and I could install Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop, pfSense 2.7.1, and OpenWrt 23.05 relatively easily, but the Ubuntu desktop is only visible in the Proxmox VE dashboard and the HDMI display physically connected to the mini PC only shows Proxmox VE login prompt. So at this point, I learned that I had to enable PCIe passthrough for the GPU in Proxmox […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC