Trigkey Speed S3 mini PC review – Part 1: Unboxing and teardown

Trigkey Speed S3 is a compact mini PC powered by AMD Ryzen 5 3550H quad-core/eight-thread processor with 16GB DDR4 and a 500GB M.2 SSD with Windows 11 Pro operating systems, as well as two HDMI ports.

Trigkey sent CNX Software a sample of the Speed S3 mini PC for review. In this post, we’ll check out the specifications of the device, before doing an unboxing and teardown of the device, and testing Windows 11 and Ubuntu in subsequent parts of the review.

Trigkey Speed S3 specifications

• SoC – AMD Ryzen 5 3550H  quad-core/eight-thread processor @ 2.1 / 3.7Ghz (Turbo) with Radeon Vega 8 Graphics @ 1200 MHz; TDP: 12-35W
• System Memory –  16 GB (2x 8GB) DDR4-3200MHz via two SO-DIMM sockets (upgradeable up to 64 GB)
• Storage
  • 500GB M.2 SSD
  • 2.5-inch SATA HDD bay (up to 7mm thick)
• Video Output – 2x HDMI ports
• Audio – 3.5mm audio jack with headphones and microphone signals
• Networking
  • Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port
  • Wifi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 4.0
• USB  – 4x USB 3.0 4 ports, 1x USB Type-C port for data
• Misc – Power LED, Power button, BIOS with support for WoL (Wake-on-LAN), auto power on
• Power Supply – 19V/3A
• Dimensions – 126 x 112.7 x 40.7 mm

The specifications make the mini PC suitable for office tasks and basic gaming.

Speed S3 Unboxing

The back of the package shows the basic specifications of the mini PC, and the model we’ve received does come with 16GB RAM and 500GB storage.

The mini PC itself is wrapped in a plastic film with a warning about potential login issues when WiFi and LAN are enabled (we did not have any problems), the USB-C port, and the ventilation holes.

The S3 mini PC ships with two HDMI cables (one about 25cm long, the other 1-meter long), a 19V/3A power with a UK plug, a VESA mounting plate with a screw set, and a multilingual user manual in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, and Japanese. We’ve tried to install the mini PC to the back of our monitor using the 25cm long HDMI cable, but the screws were too small.

Let’s check the port in the mini PC. The front panel comes with a “CLR CMOS” pinhole, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone & microphone jack, and the On/Off button with an LED.

The rear panel features a Gigabit Ethernet port, two extra USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI (presumably 2.0) ports, and a DC jack, as well as three vents at the top for cooling the device.

Teardown

The time has come for a proper teardown. The bottom comes with four screws we’ll need to loosen to open the mini PC.

Inside we can find a 2.5-inch SATA HDD bay taking drives up to 7mm thick, a 500GB M.2 Kingston SSD, and two 8GB Crucial DDR4-3200MHz RAM sticks.

If we remove the SSD from the socket, we can see the M.2 2230 Wi-Fi 5 (or 802.11ac) card, and removing the memory sticks shows the name of the board: AZW_SER3 further confirming it looks like a Beelink design.

After taking out four more screws, we can remove the board from the enclosure, and check out the cooling solution with a fan and heatsink for cooling. We can also see a CMOS battery as well as two internal antennas for WiFi and Bluetooth.

The Trigkey Speed S3 mini PC is similar to the Beelink SER3 mini PC reviewed by Ian, except that the Speed S3 mini PC comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 3350H, while the Beelink SER3 mini PC is the entry-level Ryzen 3 3200U and faster Ryzen 7 3750H, and there is a slight difference in the case design. So it will be interesting to see how the Ryzen 5 3350H model compares.

We’d like to thank Trigkey for sending the Speed S3 Ryzen 5 3350H mini PC for review. It can be purchased on their website for $399. In part 2 of the review, we plan to test Trigkey Speed S3 Mini PC with Windows 11, and in part 3 with Ubuntu 22.04.

Continue reading “Trigkey Speed S3 review – Part 2: AMD Ryzen 5 3550H mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro“.

Note: The article is a translation, with some extra insights, of the review on CNX Software Thai.

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