Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) have a series of mini PCs called LIVA which includes the diminutive Q range from which the LIVA Q2 was previously reviewed. Now it is the turn of the LIVA Q1L which although announced over a year ago has just been received for review and the results from various testing are detailed below.
Hardware Overview
The Q1L physically consists of a 74 x 74 x 34.6 mm (2.91 x 2.91 x 1.36 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC that uses slightly older Apollo Lake processors and the review model came with an N4200 CPU which is a quad-core 4-thread 1.10 GHz processor boosting to 2.50 GHz with Intel’s HD Graphics 505.
The front has a power button, two USB 3.2 Gen 1×1 ports, and one USB 2.0 port whilst the rear includes an HDMI port, two gigabit Ethernet ports, and the power jack. On the left side is a micro-SD card slot and on the right side is a Kensington security slot.
The review model also included 4 GB of soldered-on LPDDR4 2400 Mhz memory operating in single-channel:
The internals of the device consists of two stacked motherboards with the bottom one containing all the I/O ports:
and a fan sitting above the top one.
Box contents
In the box you get a power adapter and cord, a separate plug adapter appropriate for your country, and a VESA mounting bracket together with screws for attaching the device to behind a monitor:
A user manual is available on the ECS website.
Review Methodology
When reviewing mini PCs I typically look at their performance under both Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) and compare them against some of the more recently released mini PCs. Since the start of 2021, I’ve been reviewing using Windows 10 version 21H1 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS however because the review unit did not include a licensed copy of Windows I have used Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation version 21H1. I tested with a selection of commonly used Windows benchmarks and/or equivalents for Linux together with Thomas Kaiser’s ‘sbc-bench’ which is a small set of different CPU performance tests focusing on server performance when run on Ubuntu. I also use ‘Phoronix Test Suite’ and benchmark with the same set of tests on both Windows and Ubuntu for comparison purposes. On Ubuntu, I also compile the v5.4 Linux kernel using the default config as a test of performance using a real-world scenario.
Prior to benchmarking, I perform all necessary installations and updates to run the latest versions of both OSes. I also capture some basic details of the device for each OS.
Windows Performance
Retail versions of the Q1L come installed with a licensed copy of Windows 10 Pro however the sample I received only had a test Windows installation so I performed a clean install of Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation version 21H1. After upgrading to build 19043.1165, a quick look at the hardware information shows:
A brief check showed working HDMI audio, micro-SD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet.
I then set the power mode to ‘Ultimate Performance’ and ran my (2021) standard set of benchmarking tools to look at performance under Windows:
For my specific set of Phoronix Test Suite tests the results were:
All these results can then be compared with other recent mini PCs:
showing that although this is not a very powerful processor the results are in line with other mini PCs using the same older Pentium N4200 CPU and given the limitation caused by running with single-channel memory.
LIVA Q1L Ubuntu Performance
As the eMMC only had limited free space remaining after installing Windows plus the benchmarking software I performed a clean installation of Ubuntu using an Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 ISO. After installation and updates, a brief check showed working HDMI audio, micro-SD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet.
The key hardware information under Ubuntu 20.04.2 is as follows:
I then set the CPU Scaling Governor to ‘performance’ and ran my Linux benchmarks for which the majority of the results are text-based but the graphical ones included:
I also ran Passmark PerformanceTest Linux:
which can be directly compared to the results from running the CPU test in Windows:
For the same set of Phoronix Test Suite tests the results were:
The complete results together with a comparison against other recent mini PCs are:
and are again in line with other mini PCs using this older N4200 CPU.
Video playback in Browsers & Kodi
For real-world testing, I played some videos in Edge, Chrome and Kodi on Windows and in Firefox, Chrome and Kodi on Ubuntu. The following tables summarise the tests and results for each:
Note that whilst ECS claim “Best 4K Visual Experience” in their marketing they also state for OS support “Recommends to install Windows” and this is likely because although 4K is possible in Windows it isn’t achievable in Ubuntu.
Gaming
As can be seen from the above Unigine Heaven scores the Q1L will only offer very limited gaming performance.
Windows vs Ubuntu
Whilst a detailed comparison between the two operating systems is beyond the scope of this review, it is worth noting some of the key findings I observed. Looking at the performance tools common between the two OS showed that they were reasonably evenly matched.
There was an occurrence when video playback became poor in Ubuntu because thermal throttling was occurring due to the high load on the CPU but the fan had not fully ramped up. However, as soon as the fan increased the thermal throttling reduced and video playback improved.
LIVA Q1L Thermals
The Q1L uses active cooling and has a very quiet fan which when running measured no more than 38 dBA on my sound level meter next to the device.
Running a stress test on Ubuntu saw the CPU temperature rise quickly to 89°C and then drop to 77°C before slowly climbing to a maximum temperature of 95°C in an ambient room temperature of 15.3°C:
and as soon as the test finished the temperature dropped back down:
Networking
Network connectivity throughput was measured on Ubuntu using ‘iperf’:
pfSense on LIVA Q1L
As the Q1L includes dual gigabit Ethernet ports and meets the minimum hardware requirements for pfSense (which is a free, open-source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via a web interface) I tried both installing and configuring pfSense to control web access for a directly connected Intel NUC running Ubuntu from a LiveUSB:
Installation was relatively straightforward although timeouts (likely caused by a known issue with the SD card slot) slowed down the boot process:
However, pfSense ran fine on the Q1L:
and was accessible from the NUC:
After installing the squidGuard package I was successfully able to block access to a specific website (cnx-software):
from being accessible from the NUC:
which of course is not a recommended rule configuration! (Bold highlight by CNXSoft who is editing this post!!! 🙂 )
Windows 10 Drivers for LIVA Q1L
On the ECS website, there is a download link for the Windows drivers but these have not been tested as part of this review.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was measured as follows:
- Powered off (shutdown) – 0.5 Watts (Windows) and 0.2 Watts (Ubuntu)
- BIOS* – 5.0 Watts
- GRUB boot menu – 4.9 Watts
- Idle – 5.0 Watts (Windows) and 4.4 Watts (Ubuntu)
- CPU stressed – 9.9 Watts (Windows ‘cinebench’) and 11.0 Watts (Ubuntu ‘stress’)
- Video playback** – 7.5 Watts (Windows Edge 4K30fps) and 11.1 Watts (Ubuntu Chrome 1440p30fps)
*BIOS (see below)
**The power figures fluctuate while running so the value is the average of the median high and median low power readings.
BIOS
After powering up the Q1L, hitting the F7 key results in a boot menu that includes access to the BIOS. The BIOS is very limited:
Final Observations
Sometimes mini PCs become too small to be functional due to ports omission. Whilst there is no headphone jack, the Q1L’s port layout is both spacious enough to allow everything to be connected without interference and functional enough by providing the minimum number and type of ports typically needed.
| Highlights: | Limitations: |
|---|---|
| Small size | Ubuntu 4K playback |
| Dual gigabit Ethernet | Restricted BIOS |
I’d like to thank LIVA for providing the Q1L for review. It currently retails at around $299 for the tested configuration and includes a licensed Windows 10 Pro.
Ian is interested in mini PCs and helps with reviews of mini PCs running Windows, Ubuntu and other Linux operating systems. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
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So why are WiFi hot spots and USB mobile dongles so much cheaper, is a question that comes to mind?
Even a pine phone is cheaper. Yes there are design development cost and limited run production costs.
Because we’re talking 5G here. That Waveshare HAT is probably the cheapest 5G hardware I’ve found yet. Last time, I wrote about a WiFi 6 board with optional Quectel 5G IoT module, and price for the module was just under $500.
I can’t find 5G USB adapters yet, except some that take M.2 card. Having said that many people use 5G for “5GHz WiFi”, so I may have missed some models during my web search.
Wow 400 USD just for a HAT. Crazy expensive. And also: Who really gives a shit about 5G? Especially on > 6Ghz. I rather use 3G/4G, IEE 802.14.5 and Lora for certain use-cases.
Because 3G will go away, new infrastructure will be built using 5G…
Here already 3G is spotty due to frequency refarming to benefit 5G. It’s not my choice, but the hype around 5G pushed the operators to quickly adopt it.
Yeah, but the price is…painful. We’re trying to do M2M and things like IoT gateways with this stuff. $400 is painful and about 10 times the cost of the compute system we’re attaching it TO.
This isn’t too much at this time for 4G, 5G and gps. The timing for an IOT network cn be had from the GPS.
True. But as past shows us prices will drop. 3G dongles wer very expensive, now they are max 10$
4G dongles were playing in a cost league well above mortal’s capabilities.
Now go figure what will happen with 5G.
At least as long as our friends at the west coast of the Atlantic don’t kill more players besides Huawei in the 5G market…
cancer included ?
As well as the body implantable chip and bill gates’ vaccine!
LOL
I think it’s too early to make a huge investment in 5G. Still a long way to go. But Qualcomm chip whether they are sold for applications only or whatever usually have provisions for radios included in their features. This is a good price for a system which breaks that out and includes the RF parts. FWIW it should also be able to do WIFI, since they are actually phone chips. I didn’t see that broken out, which is sort of odd. Maybe too busy for the GPIO to pi to do that to, and somewhat duplicative of what a… Read more »
The price is quite too high for most use cases. I suggest to wait for operators to deliver their own kits at lower prices. They will have no other choice, after having invested billions in hardware + radio frequency licenses. If accessing them is too expensive they won’t find customers. And most end users don’t care a dime about 5G, a part of the remaining ones are conspiracy seekers who reject it :-/
Agreed with the others commenting that this is probably not good for traditional low-data IOT or M2M.
People interested in this will be 5G routers, robotics knowing it is early days for 5G but want to test it for product concepts.
Having seen the evolution of 5G cards, I can say this is a new low price point for Simcom.
Hi Team,
How we can capture the 5G modem logs?
With Which tool we can capture?
Does it supports Wireshark?