We first checked out the GEEKOM Mini IT12 with an unboxing and teardown of the Intel Core i7-12650H Alder Lake mini PC in the middle of December 2023, and we’ve now had plenty of time to test the mini PC with Windows 11 Pro since the device was out of stock for a while and we were asked to postpone the review… Now that the mini PC is for sale again, we will report our experience with the Windows 11 Pro operating system in the second part of the review of the Mini IT12. This will include an overview of the software, features testing, various benchmarks including storage and networking performance, 4K and 8K YouTube video streaming, cooling performance, fan noise, and finally, we will provide some power consumption numbers. Software overview and features testing The System->About menu wrongly shows we have a “Mini Air12” mini PC instead of a […]
GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 Linux
After going through an unboxing and teardown for the GEEKOM Mini Air12, we tested the Intel Processor N100 mini PC with Windows 11 Pro, and we’ve now had time to check Ubuntu 22.04 on the device and will report our experience with Linux in the third part of the review. We tested the hardware features, networking and storage performance, YouTube video streaming, and ran some benchmarks in Ubuntu 22.04, before checking out the cooling performance, fan noise, and power consumption of the GEEKOM Mini Air12 in Linux. We installed Ubuntu 22.04 alongside Windows 11, after having shrunk the Windows 11 partition by about half before inserting a USB drive with Ubuntu 22.04.3 ISO, and the installation went smoothly with no drivers missing. Ubuntu 22.04 system information The About window in the settings confirms we have a mini PC with a quad-core Intel Processor N100 SoC, 16GB of RAM, and a […]
Maxtang MTN-FP750 review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro on an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS mini PC
In the first part of the Maxtang MTN-FP750 mini PC review, we looked at the hardware with an unboxing, a teardown, and a first boot to the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro. We’ve now spent more time testing the Maxtang MTN-FP750, also called NUC-7735HS-A16, and we will report our experience with the AMD Ryzen 7 7735H mini PC in Windows 11 Pro with a software overview, features testing, benchmarks, storage and network performance testing, cooling performance, fan noise, power consumption, and more. Software overview and feature testing The Maxtang MTN-FP750 shipped with Windows 11 Pro 22H2, but we updated it to 23H2 (and somehow entered the Windows Insider program) before starting our test. The System->About window confirms the update and that we have an FP750 PC powered by a 3.2 GHz AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS SoC with 32GB of RAM. HWiNFO64 provides some details about the AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS 8-core/16-thread […]
Chatreey AM08 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro
I checked out the hardware of the Chatreey AM08 Pro mini PC using an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU with an unboxing, a teardown, and the first boot in the first part of the review. Now it’s time for the 2nd part which will focus on Windows 11 Pro testing on the AM08 Pro. As previously said, I have received a version with a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, which I have replaced with a 1TB Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD, so a Windows 11 reinstall was needed (I could also use Linux and dd one drive to another, but I had a Windows 11 ISO). Since the installation lacks a WiFi driver, I had to use the command oobe\BypassNRO to complete the installation. You can skip that step if you connect an Ethernet cable. The license was activated after connection to the Internet, so reinstallation is not a problem. Table […]
Mixtile Core 3588E SoM review – Part 2: Ubuntu 22.04, hardware features, RK3588 AI samples, NVIDIA Jetson compatibility
We’ve already had a look at the Mixtile Core 3588E NVIDIA Jetson Nano/TX2 NX/Xavier NX/Orin Nano compatible Rockchip RK3588 SO-DIMM system-on-module in the first part of the review with an unboxing and first boot with an Ubuntu 22.04 OEM installation. I’ve now had more time to play with the devkit comprised of a Core 3588 module in 16GB/128GB configuration and a Leetop A206 carrier board with low-level features testing, some benchmarks, multimedia testing with 3D graphics acceleration and video playback, some AI tests using the built-in 6 TOPS NPU and the RKNPU2 toolkit, and finally I also tried out the system-on-module with the carrier board from an NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit. Ubuntu 22.04 System info We had already checked some of the system information in the first part of the Mixtile Core 3588E review, but here’s a reminder:
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jaufranc@Mixtile-RK3588E:~$ uname -a Linux Mixtile-RK3588E 5.10.160-rockchip #18 SMP Wed Dec 6 15:11:42 UTC 2023 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux jaufranc@Mixtile-RK3588E:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=22.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=jammy DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS" jaufranc@Mixtile-RK3588E:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on tmpfs 1.6G 2.7M 1.6G 1% /run /dev/mmcblk0p2 113G 7.5G 101G 7% / tmpfs 7.7G 0 7.7G 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 8.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/mmcblk0p1 512M 101M 411M 20% /boot/firmware tmpfs 1.6G 60K 1.6G 1% /run/user/0 tmpfs 1.6G 76K 1.6G 1% /run/user/130 tmpfs 1.6G 68K 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000 jaufranc@Mixtile-RK3588E:~$ free -mh total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 15Gi 601Mi 13Gi 47Mi 1.4Gi 14Gi Swap: 2.0Gi 0B 2.0Gi |
I also ran inxi to check a few more details. […]
Review of Blackview MP80 (Processor N97) mini PC with Windows 11 Pro
Blackview MP80 is a tiny pocket-sized mini PC powered by either an Intel Alder Lake-N Processor N95 or Processor N97 CPU with 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB M.2 SSD preloaded with Windows 11 Pro. We’ve already reviewed the Blackview MP80 (N95) mini PC a few months ago, but the company has now sent us the Processor N97 model for review. Both models look identical with the same ports including three HDMI 2.0 video outputs, three USB ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports, plus a Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless module. The mini PCs are also actively cooled, and the only obvious differences are the processor (Intel N95 vs N97) and the color of the enclosure. We usually do a three-part review with the first one listing the specs, and going through an unboxing and a teardown, but for the Blackview MP80 (N97) review we will do those and […]
ASRock Industrial NUC Ultra 100 Meteor Lake-H motherboards feature Core Ultra 5 125H and Core Ultra 7 155H processors
ASRock Industrial has just announced two NUC Ultra 100 motherboards powered by Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake-H processors namely the Core Ultra 5 125H and Ultra 7 155H with up to 16 cores and 22 threads, and integrating Intel ARC Graphics and the new Intel NPU AI engine. As the name implies, the NUC Ultra 100 Motherboard Series are designed in NUC form factor, support up to 96GB dual-channel DDR5-5600 MHz memory, three storage interface, up to four 4K displays, and offer two 2.5GbE networking ports, one USB4/Thunderbolt, and four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. ASRock Industrial says those features make the motherboards suitable for smart retail, kiosks, digital signage, smart cities, embedded industries, Edge AIoT applications, etc… NUC Ultra 100 motherboards specifications: Meteor Lake-H SoC (one or the other) Intel Core Ultra 7 T4 155H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.4 / 4.8 GHz with 24MB cache, Intel 8Xe LPG […]
iKOOLCORE R2 (Core i3-N300) system review – Part2: Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 22.04, pfSense
In the first part of iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC & router review, I had a look at the hardware with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N computer and also noticed the device booted to a UEFI shell. So for the second part of the review, I will report my experience installing Proxmox VE on the iKOOLCORE R2 and setting up and using Ubuntu 22.04, pfSense 2.7.2, and OpenWrt 23.05 virtual machines, making sure I can still use a physical display, keyboard, and mouse with Ubuntu while pfSense firewall is running. As a side note, the previous generation iKOOLCORE R1 mini PC that was sent to Ian for review with Proxmox VE and various virtual machines preinstalled OpenWrt, Debian 11, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC set to Chinese language by default. As I understand it, iKOOLCORE still does that for the Chinese market, but not […]