Beelink Introduces TV Sticks and Mini PCs powered by Intel Atom Z3735F Processor

Beelink has announced three new devices based on Intel Atom Z3735F processor: Pocket P1 slim PC, Pocket P2 HDMI stick, and a mini PC simply called “Mini PC” with an internal slot for 2.5″ hard drives. All three mini computers come with 2GB RAM, 16 to 32GB eMMC, and run Windows 8.1 like most other Z3735F devices, but they’re also providing dual band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0,  USB 3.0 ports, and for the mini PC a Gigabit Ethernet port.

Preliminary specifications for the three models:

• SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F  “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust freq: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics Gen 7 (2W TDP)
• System Memory – 2 GB RAM
• Storage
  • Mini PC – 16 GB eMMC + 2.5″ SATA bay (under the device) + SD card slot up
  • P1 and P2 – 32 GB eMMC + micro SD card slot
• Video & Audio Output – HDMI. Mini PC only: headphone jack
• Connectivity
  • P1 – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
  • P2 – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
  • Mini PC only – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
• USB
  • Mini PC – 4x USB port + 1x micro USB OTG port. USB 3.0 is mentioned but, It’s unclear whether all four ports are USB 3.0, or there’s a mix of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports.
  • P1 and P2 – Number of ports unknown, but they are said to features USB 3.0 port(s)
• Misc – Mini PC only – Kensington lock
• Power Supply – 5V/2A
• Dimensions – N/A
• Weight – N/A

Interfaces like USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet and SATA are nice, but the way they are implemented are important, or they may just be marketing tricks. So I’ve extracted the table from Intel Atom Z3600 / Z3700 datasheet to check out the capabilities of the SoC.

There are two type of Soc Type 4 and Type 4. According to the datasheet: “Z3735D, Z3735E are in Type 4 Package” and “Z3735F, Z3735G, Z3736F, Z3736G are in Type 3 Package”. So based on this information and other parts of the datasheet, Z3735F should not support USB 3.0, has no Ethernet interface (let alone Gigabit), and SATA is nowhere to be found. That would means SATA and Gigabit Ethernet are both going through a USB host interface limited to 480 Mbps. I’m not quite sure how USB 3.0 can be implemented, unless that means they just used the blue USB 3.0 connectors only.

Having said, Mele PCG03, also based on Z3735F, is perfectly capable of decoding 4K / H.264 up to 30 fps, so I wonder what if the datasheet could be wrong, or there are different versions of  Z3735F. Assuming the company is actually using a type 4 SoC, then USB 3.0 would be natively supported, and Gigabit Ethernet and SATA could either be implemented via separate USB 2.0 interfaces, or through an on-board USB 3.0 hub, and both cases are not ideal. Nevertheless, we should not expect amazing SATA and Gigabit Ethernet performance out of Beelink Mini PC. USB 3.0 remains a question mark, but it’s likely they’ll use a Type 4 SoC, so performance should be very good (in theory).

Availability and pricing information is not available at this stage.

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