Beelink GT-R Review – An AMD Ryzen 5 Mini PC Tested with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04

Beelink GT-R Review

Whilst Windows mini PCs have traditionally used Intel processors similar small form factor (SFF) devices using AMD based processors have recently been announced and Beelink is amongst the first manufacturers to deliver one with their newly released GT-R mini PC. Available as a barebones device and in various configurations Beelink sent a fully configured model for review. Hardware overview The Beelink GT-R is a slightly larger mini PC physically consisting of a 168 mm x 120 mm x 39 mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) rectangular metal case with a plastic top. It is an actively cooled mini PC that uses a (previous generation) Zen+ microarchitecture 12 nm Ryzen 5 3550H mobile processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.1 GHz processor boosting to 3.7 GHz with Radeon Vega 8 Graphics. The front panel has a power button, two 3.0 USB ports, a headphone jack, and a Type-C USB port […]

IoTSDR Linux Board Targets the Development of IoT Gateways with Standard or Custom IoT Protocols (Crowdfunding)

iotSDR board

Xilinx Zynq-7010/-7020 powered iotSDR board by EmbedINN enables the development of IoT gateways with support for LoRa, SigFox, WeightLess, Bluetooth, BLE, 802.15.4, ZigBee, as well as custom IoT protocols. The board also supports GPS, Galileo, Beidou, and GLONASS navigation systems thanks to a Maxim Integrated MAX2769 GNSS chip. iotSDR key hardware features and specifications: SoC (one or the other) Xilinx Zynq-Z7010 (XC7Z010-1CLG400C) dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor with 256 kb on-chip memory, FPGA fabric with 28,000 logic cells, 17,600 LUTs, 2.1 Mb block RAM, 80 DSP slices Xilinx Zynq-Z7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG400C) dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with 256 kb on-chip memory, FPGA fabric with 85,000 logic cells, 53,200 LUTs, 4.9 Mb block RAM, 220 DSP slices System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage 128 Mbit QSPI flash memory for firmware Microchip AT24MAC602 SPI EEPROM for RF transceiver MCU firmware and data Radios “IoT” Radios RF Transceivers – 2x Microchip/Atmel AT86RF215 European band – […]

Beelink Gemini M is a Thin Mini PC Powered by Intel Celeron J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh SoC

Beelink Gemini M

The first Intel Gemini Lake Refresh (GLK-R) processors were announced last November, but we haven’t seen that many devices with the new processors, and so far we only covered some FUJITSU thin clients, as well as ODROID-H2+  and ODYSSEY-X86J4105 SBC’s with the “refreshed” processors. Beelink is about to launch a rather thin mini PC – Beelink Gemini M – powered by a 10W Intel Celeron J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh SoC coupled with 8GB RAM, and offering two independent 4K video outputs. Beelink Gemini M specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core Gemini Lake Refresh processor @ 2.00 GHz / 2.7 GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD Graphics 600; 10W TDP System Memory – 8GB RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, M.2 2242 SATA socket, SD card reader Video Output – 2x HDMI 1.4 ports up to 4K @ 30 Hz Audio – 3.5mm headphone+mic jack, digital audio output via HDMI Connectivity […]

Dune HD AV1 4K TV Box To Run AOSP or Android TV for Android 10 on RealTek RTD1319 Processor

Dune HD AV1 4K TV Box

4K TV boxes capable of playing AV1 content are coming later this year. Many of the entry-level models will feature Amlogic S905X4 processor, but some higher-end set-top boxes will instead be equipped with Broadcom BCM7218X or Realtek RTD1319 processor with better video post-processing capabilities and often more extensive DRM support which can be important to operators. Dune HD AV1 4K TV box is coming later this year with Realtek RTD1319 media processor, and support for either Android 10 AOSP or Android TV for Android 10. Dune HD AV1 4K TV box specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1319 quad-core Arm Cortex A55 processor with Mali-G31 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 API support System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16 GB flash (32 GB or more as an option) Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4Kp60 with HDR support, 3.5mm AV port with composite video and analog stereo […]

Cooler Master Launches Pi Case 40 for Raspberry Pi 4 on Kickstarter

Cooler Master Case GPIO Header

Cooler Master, known for its PC cooling solutions and cases, has now launched a Raspberry Pi 4 case on Kickstarter. Cooler Master Pi Case 40 has already raised over $120,000 within a few hours, with the $27 Raspberry Pi 4 enclosure blasting pass the $10,000 funding target in about one hour. The aluminum case is unsurprisingly a fanless design and exposes a power button to easily power on and off the system without having to remove the power source from the Raspberry Pi. The button also happens to be reconfigurable to any other function so you can run whatever script you please after pressing the button. The neat part of the design is that GPIOs are re-routed to the side of the case with corresponding IO markings on the enclosure. The case also comes with a slit to allow both display and camera cables to be routed outside the enclosure, […]

QNAP QSW-1105-5T 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Switch Targets Home Users

QNAP QSW-1105-5T 2.5Gbps Ethernet Switch

While Gigabit Ethernet has reigned supreme in the home over the years, 2.5 Gbps, 5 Gbps, or even 10 Gbps Ethernet has been used for a while in the enterprise. But if you intended to upgrade your home network to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet (aka 2.5GbE) possibly with an ODROID-H2+ single board computer in the mix, you may have found 2.5GbE switches are pretty expensive going for several hundred dollars. But QNAP has just launched its first 2.5Gbps Ethernet switch specifically designed for home users with a price in the $100 range, and available in Amazon UK for 108 GBP or in Taiwan for 2,999 NTD. QNAP QSW-1105-5T 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Switch specifications: Ethernet 5x 2.5GbE NBASE-T RJ45 ports (unmanaged) with link/activity LED’s 16K MAC address table Switching capacity – 25Gbps Jumbo Frames – 9K Supported Standards IEEE 802.3 Ethernet IEEE 802.3u 100BASE-T IEEE 802.3ab 1000BASE-T IEEE 802.3bz 2.5GBase-T IEEE 802.3x […]

Beware of Fake Heart Rate Sensors in Low-Cost Fitness Trackers

Fitness Tracker Fake Heart Rate Sensor

Manufacturers always attempt to lower the BoM costs of their products to increase sales and boost profits. Most do it in an honest way, but some are either incompetent or deceptive as we’ve recently seen in an IR thermometer was the infrared unit was not connected to the mainboard. I’ve just been informed about another trick that’s been going on for a while. Some ultra-cheap fitness trackers come with fake heart rate sensors that are simply replaced by two LED’s to simulate the real thing. The trick was discovered last year by Aaron Christophel who purchased several fitness trackers believe to be based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 in order to as he wanted to use Arduino firmware with those. He managed to do so in several with IWOWNFIT I6HRC tracker being the best suited for the tasks. But he also found some bad apples in the lot with several trackers […]

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Coming Next Year with PCIe/NVMe Support

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

The Raspberry Pi 4 features a Broadcom BCM2711 processor with Cortex-A72/A53 cores that makes it competitive against other SBC’s based on Rockchip RK3399 or Amlogic S922X/A311D processors. The new processor also happens to have a PCIe interface, but it’s not exposed on the board since the interface is used by VIA VL805 PCIe USB 3.0 controller for the four USB 3.0 ports on the little computer. At the time, we expected the PCIe interface to be exposed in future Raspberry Pi boards or a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. But some people did not feel like waiting and instead hack the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC to access the PCIe interface. That hack is clearly not for everyone though… But based on a recent interview of Eben Upton with Tom’s Hardware we got pretty much confirmation that the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 will be coming next year, and expose PCIe […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC