Zotac PI225 Ultra Slim Apollo Lake Mini PC is Smaller than a 2.5″ SSD, About as Thick as a Smartphone

We’ve covered a large number of tiny mini PCs and TV sticks powered by Intel processors, but usually they are thicker than your smartphone because of USB, HDMI, and Ethernet ports if the latter is included. Zotac decided to leverage USB type C data and display capabilities to do away with USB & HDMI ports, and used a micro USB port for power in their latest Zotac PI225 mini PC resulting in an ultra thin (8mm) mini PC that is smaller than a 2.5″ SSD. Zotac PI225 mini PC specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N3350 dual core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 / 2.4 GHz with 12 EU Intel HD Graphics 500 (6W TDP) System Memory – 4 GB LPDDR3 Storage – 32 GB eMMC flash, micro SDXC slot USB – 2x USB 3.0 type C connectors with data and DisplayPort support Connectivity – 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 Power […]

Intel Compute Card Apollo Lake and Kaby Lake SKUs, Block Diagrams, and Specifications

Intel Compute cards are the latest ultra-thin CPU cards introduced by Intel at the beginning of the year, with a concept similar to EOMA68 CPU cards, that it to allow  CPU card upgrades or replacements, and interoperability across compatible devices such as smart kiosks, IoT gateways, and so on. But at the time, Intel did not reveal that many details about the different cards, although we know NexDock is working on laptop dock compatible with Intel Compute Cards. But I’ve recently received some block diagrams for Apollo Lake Pentium/Celeron, and Kaby Lake Core M/Core i5 compute cards.There will two SKUs for Apollo Lake compute cards sharing the same specifications, except for the processor: SoC CD1C64GK SKU – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core processor @ 1.1 / 2.2 GHz (base/turbo) with 12EU Intel HD Graphics Gen9; 7.5W TDP CD1P64GK SKU – Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ 1.1 / 2.5 GHz […]

ARM Chromebooks Run Android Apps Better, Exhibit Longer Battery Life than Intel Chromebooks (Study)

Google has been working on supporting Android apps and the Play Store on Chromebooks, which are normally sold with either ARM or Intel processors. So the ability to run Android apps well is one of the things to consider before purchasing a Chromebook. Shrout Research has published a paper entitled “Chromebook Platform Choice Important for Android App Performance” comparing an Acer Chromebook R13 with a Mediatek MT8173C ARM Cortex A72/A53 processor to Acer Chromebook R11 with an Intel Celeron N3060. The Intel Chromebook has a smaller resolution so this could be an advantage, so less resources are needed to update the display. However, the ARM processor is significantly more powerful than the Intel one according to GeekBench results, and Chromebook R13 is sold for $399 on Amazon US, while Chromebook R11 goes for $299 (and lower during promotions). So it’s not a perfect comparison, but it should give an idea […]

CHUWI Lapbook 12.3 is a Windows 10 / Ubuntu Apollo Lake Laptop with a 2K Display, 6GB RAM, Up to 256 GB SSD Storage

I’ve reviewed CHUWI LapBook 14.1 laptop earlier this year with an Intel Celeron N3450 Apollo Lake processor, 14.1″ Full HD display and 4GB RAM, and found it to work reasonably well for the price in Windows 10, as well as Ubuntu 17.04. The company has been working on another model called CHUWI LapBook 12.3 with the same processor, but a smaller yet higher resolution 12.3″ 2K display, more memory (6GB RAM), 64GB eMMC flash, and support for M.2 SSDs up to 256 GB. CHUWI LapBook 12.3 specifications with highlight in bold showing differences against LapBook 14.1 model: SoC – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz (Burst frequency) and 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 700 MHz (Burst freq.); 6W TDP System Memory – 6GB DDR3 Storage – 64 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up to 128 […]

Zotac CI327 Nano Apollo Lake Fanless mini PC Features HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2, and VGA Video Outputs

While many Apollo Lake mini PCs have been launched, few support 4K @ 60 Hz video output, but Zotac CI327 Nano mini PC does even better than that thanks to HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs allowing for dual 4K UHD @ 60 Hz setups, and it also adds an extra VGA port to enable triple display setups. The rest of the specifications are not too bad either with three models CI327 Nano (windows / no windows) and CI327 Nano Plus with slightly different hardware specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N3450 quad-core  processor @ 1.1GHz / 2.2GHz with Intel HD Graphics 500 System Memory Nano with Windows and Nano PLUS – 4GB DDR3L (one slot occupied, up to 8GB) Nano – 2x 204-pin DDR3L-1866 SO-DIMM slots (up to 8GB) Storage – 1x 2.5″ SATA 6.0 Gbps SSD/HDD slot; 3-in-1 (SD/SDHC/SDXC); Nano with WINDOWS only: 32GB M.2 on-board SATA SSD Video […]

GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H Apollo Lake Mini-ITX Motherboard Comes with 2x Gigabit Ethernet Interfaces, 4x SATA Ports

GIGABYTE has introduced an update to Bay Trail based GA-J1900-D3V and Braswell based GA-N3150N-D3V motherboards with the launch of GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H mini-ITX motherboard powered by an Intel Celeron J3455 Apollo Lake processor, and equipped with two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four SATA interfaces, and support for up to 16GB RAM. GA-J3455N-D3H specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad core processor @ 1.50 / 2.3 GHz with 12EU Intel HD Graphics 500, 2 MB Cache; 10W TDP System Memory – 2x DDR3L SO-DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB RAM; Dual channel; DDR3L 1866/1600/1333 MHz non-ECC memory modules supported Storage 2x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0 & 1) via SoC, 2x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 2 & 3) via ASMedia ASM1061 chip 1x 64 Mbit flash for licensed AMI UEFI BIOS with PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0 Video Output 1x D-Sub port (VGA) supporting a maximum […]

Bben to Launch an Apollo Lake HDMI TV Stick Powered by Intel Celeron N3450 Processor

Intel is planning to launch “Michigan City” Apollo Lake Compute Sticks sometimes with year, but Bben, after launching MN17A Apollo Lake mini PC, may be able to launch their own Celeron N3450 TV stick before Intel does, as Netbook Italia reports the company showcased such product at the Hong Kong Global Sources Electronics Fair. Bben Micro computer  specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz, 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 700 MHz; 6W TDP System Memory – 2 to 4GB DDR3 Storage – 32 or 64 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI port (likely limited to 1.4 version with 4K @ 30 Hz max resolution/framerate) Audio – HDMI + 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports Misc – Fan and ventilation […]

OpenELEC 8.0 Released with WeTek Play 2 & Hub, and Raspberry Pi Zero W Support

In recent months, I’ve written more about LibreELEC, a fork of OpenELEC, but the latter project is still being worked on, and OpenELEC 8.0 has been released adding builds for WeTek Play 2 & WeTek Hub TV boxes, as well as Raspberry Pi Zero W board, and upgrading to Kodi 17.1. and newer packages such as Linux 4.9 and ffmpeg 3.2. The developers also removed some unused or dropped features such as HFS and HFS+ filesystem, iSCSI, NFS/NBD/iSCSI network boot, and LIRC. X11 AMDGPU, ATI (Radeon) and Intel GPU driver driver has been replaced by X11 Modesettings GPU driver. They also updated some drivers & firmware files for WLAN and DVB, as well as update Nvidia Legacy driver to xf86-video-nvidia-340 (VDPAU only supported now). You can download or update OpenELEC 8.0, not only for the new WeTek and Raspberry Pi platforms, but for also x86 64-bit images for Intel & […]

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