beelink News - Page 4 of 13 - CNX Software

December 22, 2021February 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 3 Comments

Beelink GTi11 Review – Part 1: Tiger Lake mini PC with Windows 11

Beelink’s GTi11 is the latest offering in their ‘GT’ series of slightly larger mini PCs that are notable for expandable storage configurations together with multiple ports and characterized by including a fingerprint scanner. Featuring Intel’s 11th generation Tiger Lake processors, Beelink kindly sent an i5 version for review which I will undertake in three parts. In this first part, I’ve looked at Windows performance and the second part will cover Ubuntu with the third part looking at various configuration mods. Beelink GTi11 Hardware Overview The GTi11 physically consists of a 168 x 120 x 39mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) rectangular metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s ‘10 nm SuperFin’ Tiger Lake processors and the review model included an i5-1135G7 which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.50 GHz Core processor boosting to 4.20 GHz with Intel’s Xe Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power […]

December 17, 2021December 17, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beelink GTI 11 Tiger Lake mini PC offers triple display output, dual 2.5GbE

Tiger Lake Mini PC dual 2.5GbE HDMI, DisplayPort

Beelink GTI 11 mini PC is offered with either Intel Core i5-1135G7 or Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake processor, coupled with 16GB or 32GB DDR4, a 500 GB NVMe SSD, and provides triple display support via HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C interfaces, two 2.5GbE ports, and more. Beelink first teased the board in June with an upcoming crowdfunding campaign that never happened, but the Tiger Lake mini PC is now available on Banggood for $609.99 (Core i5, 16GB RAM) and $819.99 (Core i7, 32GB RAM). Note those are promotional prices valid until December 28, and initially, I was shown $809.99 and $1,089.99 respectively with an address in Thailand. Switching to a US address lowered the price, so the promotion depends on the warehouse, and YMMV. Beelink GTI 11 mini PC specifications: Tiger Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i5-1135G7 quad-core/8-thread processor @ up to 2.4GHz / 4.2GHz (Turbo) with 8MB […]

November 17, 2021May 29, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 11 Comments

Experiences of configuring and using a ‘hackendeck’ homemade Steam Deck

Valve recently released information about developing for the Steam Deck if you didn’t have a Dev-Kit which is an engineering verification test build (EV2) version of their device. Included in the documentation is a suggestion to build your own Steam Deck, or ‘hackendeck’ using a mini PC. Whilst I didn’t have the exact brand they picture in the article I did have a mini PC with the required specifications so I set about following the instructions to see how it performed. Hardware Overview Valve’s documentation under ‘Performance’ states that ‘if you are really interested in finding a PC for testing that will perform similarly to a Steam Deck … there are a few options out there and then goes on to suggest a mini PC with the following ‘roughly similar specifications to a Steam Deck’: AMD Ryzen 7 3750H Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics 16GB of DDR4 RAM This exactly […]

November 2, 2021June 22, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 19 Comments

Beelink U59 Review – Windows 11, Ubuntu on a Jasper Lake mini PC

Coupling a German submarine with a North American lake seems a perfect match in this topsy-turvy supply-constrained COVID-19 broken world we find ourselves in but that’s just what Beelink has figuratively done by launching their new Intel Jasper Lake mini PC, the U59. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 20.04. Beelink U59 Hardware Overview The Beelink U59 physically consists of a 124 x 113 x 42mm (4.88 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square plastic case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s new 10 nm Jasper Lake N5095 processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz Celeron processor boosting to 2.90 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, dual USB 3.1 ports, a Type-C USB 3.0 port with DisplayPort Alternate Mode, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’. […]

October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Beelink U59 Celeron N5095 Jasper Lake mini PC ships with up to 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Beelink U59 is a Jasper Lake mini PC based on an Intel Celeron N5095 15W quad-core processor that ships with 8GB RAM and a 256 GB M.2 SSD for $279+ on Amazon or Banggood, or $349+ with 16GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The mini PC offers two 4K HDMI 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi 5, as well as four USB 3.0 ports, and supports one 2.5-inch SATA drive up to 7mm thick. Beelink U59 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5095 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics; 15W TDP System MEmory – 8GB or 16GB DDR4 2,933 MHz Storage – 256GB or 512GB M.2 SATA SSD with up to 500MB/s read speed. Support for 2.5-inch SATA drives (7mm thick max). Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4Kp60 Audio – 3.5mm audio (headphone & microphone) […]

September 10, 2021September 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Beelink LZX – A Zhaoxin KX-6640MA based x86 Mini PC you may never see

Beyond Intel and AMD, there are other x86 processors in the wild from DM&P and Zhaoxin. We’ve written about the latter in a QNAP NAS earlier this year, but now it turns out there’s also a Zhaxin-based mini PC with Beelink LZX based on a Zhaoxin KX-6640MA quad-core x86 processor that showed up on Shopee Indonesia for 3.86 million Indonesian Rupiahs, or about $270 US. The computer comes with 8GB RAM by default but supports up to 64GB, as well as dual M.2 NVMe and SATA III storage, two 4Kp60 capable HDMI ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and more. Beelink LZX specifications: SoC – Zhaoxin KX-6640MA quad-core processor @ 2.1 GHz / 2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, C-960 Graphics (support 4K HD); TDP: 25W System Memory – 8GB DDR4 RAM upgradeable to 64GB via two SO-DIMM memory slots Storage – 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, additional M.2 2280 slot for NVMe […]

August 28, 2021August 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

LibreELEC 10.0 minimal Linux OS for media playback released with Kodi 19.1

While most TV boxes and SBCs nowadays ship with or support a version of Android, people who just want the best viewing experience may prefer to switch to a Linux distribution such as LibreELEC or CoreELEC. The good news is that LibreELEC 10.0 has just been released with Kodi 19.1 and Linux 5.10 LTS. LibreELEC 10.0 is said to work well for Allwinner, Rockchip, and “Generic” Intel/AMD devices, while the Raspberry Pi 4 release’s codebase is rather new, and there may still be a few rough edges. Support for the previous generation Raspberry Pi boards has been dropped, and there’s no support for Amlogic platforms as CoreELEC already provides good support. Since LibreELEC 10.0 is based on Kodi 19.1, it benefits from the same features as Kodi 19 “Matrix” release including AV1 video decoding, a new skin, HDR support, and more. LibreELEC 10.1 support a wide range of single board […]

May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 7 Comments

Beelink GKmini Review – An Intel Celeron J4125 mini PC reviewed with Windows 10 Pro, Ubuntu 20.04

Beelink have recently released another small form factor (SFF) design similar to the traditional Intel ‘NUC’ called the GKmini which they have provided for review. Available as a fully configured Windows 10 Pro mini PC means it can be up and running straight out of the box. Hardware Overview The Beelink GKmini physically consists of a 115mm x 102mm x 43mm (4.53 x 4.02 x 1.69 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC and uses Intel’s 14 nm J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz processor boosting to 2.70 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics 600. The front panel has a power button, a headphone jack, two USB 3.0 ports, and a ‘CLR CMOS’ pinhole that leads to a button which when pressed clears the CMOS. The rear panel includes the power jack, dual HDMI ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, a further […]