Chatreey AM08 Pro review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 and ESXi 7.0 on an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC

Chatreey AM08 Pro Review Ubuntu VMWare ESXi

In the first article, I checked out the hardware of the Chatreey AM08 Pro mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU and tested it with Windows 11 Pro in the second part of the review. Now it’s time for the third part where I’ll test Ubuntu 22.04.03 Desktop OS and ESXi 7.0 update 3C hypervisor on the AM8 Pro mini PC. The installation process was simple enough and both WiFi and Ethernet were detected correctly. Contents Ubuntu 22.04 System information with AM08 Pro Performance of AM08 Pro 7940HS sbc-bench.sh Geekbench  iozone3  FIO  Network performance (2.5GbE and WiFi 6) of AM08 Pro 7940HS 2.5 GbE WiFi 6E  Stress test and CPU temperature of AM08 Pro 7940HS Power consumption of AM08 Pro 7940HS Jellyfin on Ubuntu 22.04.03 (server) ESXi 7.0 Installation The stability Conclusion 1. Ubuntu 22.04 1.1. Ubuntu System information with AM08 Pro The system information in Ubuntu […]

MINIX NEO Z100-0dB fanless N100 mini PC review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and first boot

MINIX Z100-0dB mini PC review

MINIX Z100-0dB (or MINIX NEO Z100-0dB) is a fanless mini PC powered by the popular Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N CPU with up to 32GB RAM, up to 512GB M.2 SSD, various USB 3.2/2.0 ports, a microSD card slot, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a 2.5GbE RJ45 jack, as well as WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module. MINIX sent us a sample of the NEO Z100-0dB mini PC for review with 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM and a 512GB M.2 SSD preloaded with Windows 11 Pro. Since we’ve already listed the specifications in the announcement, today, we’ll go through an unboxing and a teardown before giving it a quick try booting Windows 11 Pro. We will then test the performance and features of the mini PC in detail with  Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 (or 24.04) in the next parts of the review in several weeks.   MINIX NEO […]

Espressif announces the ESP32-C61 WiFi 6 SoC with improved affordability and wireless connectivity

ESP32 C61 Block Diagram

Espressif has announced the ESP32-C61 SoC, a new ESP32-Cx chip with improved wireless connectivity, and expanded memory options. The ESP32-C61 builds upon the foundation laid by previous ESP32-Cx chips, such as the ESP32-C2 and ESP-C3, and its specifications appear to be quite similar to the ESP32-C6 launched in early 2023, but this SoC also adds support for the BLE Mesh 1.1 protocol and Quad SPI PSRAM at a frequency of up to 120MHz. It supports WiFi 6 on two modes (802.11ax and 802.11b/g/n) and includes a Bluetooth 5 (LE) radio with support for long-range operation through advertisement extension and coded PHY. The TWT (Target Wake Time) feature is supported in 802.11ax mode to save power, as well as OFDMA (Uplink/Downlink) and MU-MIMO (Downlink) for a high-quality, low-latency connection between devices. ESP32-C61 specifications: CPU – Single-core, 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller that can be clocked up to 160MHz Memory: 320KB on-chip SRAM 256KB […]

Xiaomi Router AX1500 WiFi 6 router sells for $25

Xiaomi Router AX1500

Xiaomi Router AX1500 is an inexpensive WiFi 6 router with four antennas delivering up to 1201Mbps at 5 GHz and 300 Mbps at 2.4GHz and selling for just around $25 including shipping on Aliexpress. We had already cheap WiFi 6 solution with the Banana Pi BPI-WiFi 6 router based on Triductor Technology TR6560 dual-core Cortex-A9 router SoC and TR5220 WiFi 6 chipset going for $26, but that was the board only, and a complete system went for around $40. Xiaomi Router AX1500 is a complete WiFi 6 router selling for just $25 with an enclosure and power supply. Xiaomi Router AX1500 specifications: SoC – Unspecified Networking Wireless 2.4GHz WiFi 2×2  802.11n up to 300Mbps Channels – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11, 12, 13 5GHz WiFi 2×2 802.11ax (WiFi 6) up to 1201Mbps Channels – 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64,149, 153, 157, 161, […]

Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H mini PC review – Part 1: unboxing, teardown, and first boot

Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H mini PC windows 11

Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H is a Windows 11 Pro mini PC powered by an Intel Core i7-12650H Alder Lake-H processor coupled with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, up to 2TB of M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and various ports such as HDMI 2.0 video output, USB Type-C and Type-A ports, gigabit Ethernet, as well as a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module. Shenzhen AZW Technology, the company behind the Beelink brand, sent us the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H mini PC with 32GB DDR4 RAM and a 500GB M.2 SSD 500 GB for review. In the first part of the review, we’ll check out the specifications, before going through an unboxing and a teardown, and checking whether it boots to Windows 11 Pro as expected. We’ll then work on detailed reviews with both  Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 in the next few weeks. Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H specifications SoC – […]

Fanless Intel N100 mini PC supports PoE power input, provides four 2.5GbE ports

NEOSMAY PoE Alder Lake-N Mini PC

‎NEOSMAY is selling a fanless Intel Processor N100 mini PC with support for PoE power input, four 2.5GbE ports, HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, and a choice of USB ports for $249 (after ticking the $150 coupon code) on Amazon with 8GB RAM and a 128GB SATA SSD. The mini PC also supports 12V DC power input if you don’t use PoE power input, and comes with an additional RJ45 port acting as an RS232 console. There’s no built-in wireless, but the mini PC can take a WiFi and Bluetooth module, as well as a 4G LTE or 5G module, and features a SIM card slot for the latter. Specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – 8GB DDDR4-3200, upgradable to 32GB Storage 128GB M.2 SATA SSD, […]

Chatreey AM08 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro

Chatreey AM08 Pro Windows 11 Pro review

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

Mixtile Core 3588E Ubuntu 22.04 review

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:

I also ran inxi to check a few more details. […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC