Mini Pc's

[J-SavYT]

So I stumbled on this and it got me thinking about mini pc's 

 

https://www.directspsi.com/index.php?route=product%2Fproduct&path=8&product_id=940&fbclid=IwAR2loz26J9UrfgFc4uaqlLtD1WpmnJkOHY0ILPA37brGV6QS5Ftz8zxRUp0

that's the product link. I kinda enjoy everything about it especially the folding keyboard. Kinda got me thinking about making things to fit a smaller form factor instead of small form factors fitting into with things not really made for them.

[samcool55]

that thing is thicc holy crap.

 

I love the GPD ones

 

[aisle9]

I mean, aside from the fact that it looks like ass, runs on an Atom and uses a butterfly keyboard that IBM ditched because it looked antiquated in the '90s, it's ok. If it really is only $59, as shown in the purchase bar on the bottom of the page which seems to lack an actual purchase button, then it's worth taking a flyer on and, if it sucks as much as every other Atom-powered thing I've ever seen does, give it away for Christmas. The 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage built in is impressive in this form factor (and makes me really question the accuracy of that $59 price tag), but again, Atom. You can throw 64GB of DDR4-3200 at an Atom, and while Windows 10 itself will be a whole lot more stable than it is with the typical 2GB complement, it's still an Atom. A useless, trash, waste of silicon Atom, and even basic 1080p60 playback will bring it to its knees.

[J-SavYT]

Are atoms really that bad?

 

[J-SavYT]

38 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

that thing is thicc holy crap.

 

I love the GPD ones

 

Ya they're really amazing. It's not gonna be super fast but for $57 it "seems" nice

[manikyath]

25 minutes ago, J-SavYT said:

Are atoms really that bad?

 

i have done the spring creators update on a similarly specced device, and it took about 20 hours to complete.

[J-SavYT]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i have done the spring creators update on a similarly specced device, and it took about 20 hours to complete.

damn

[manikyath]

Just now, J-SavYT said:

damn

but hey, 2 watt x86 cpu

[Mr.Meerkat]

@aisle9 In its defence, it is powerful enough to run old titles at 30fps~ like one of my favourites: NFSMW (2005). Also, it is powerful enough to run some emulators so although it is not perfect by any means, it is still pretty usable . 

[aisle9]

1 hour ago, J-SavYT said:

Are atoms really that bad?

 

No, they're worse.

 

1 hour ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

@aisle9 In its defence, it is powerful enough to run old titles at 30fps~ like one of my favourites: NFSMW (2005). Also, it is powerful enough to run some emulators so although it is not perfect by any means, it is still pretty usable . 

If I'm going to spend what it costs to get an Atom with decent specs around it, I'm going to want it to do more than play a 13-year-old game at 30 FPS. Anyone can go to Gearbest or AliExpress and find an $80-100ish Atom box with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage. Good luck getting it into Windows in less than ten minutes, and God help you if you ever try to use Chrome, but yeah, it will work. If you want an Atom-based system that's got 4GB of RAM and a 128GB storage setup, something truly capable of running 13-year-old games on Windows 10 at 30 FPS, you're looking at $240-280 for a decent box.

 

And now that I'm done railing it and can see that it really is just $60 shipped, jesus christ, that's tempting. Almost as tempting as the $120 model with a 512GB SSD included.

 

I have virtually zero faith that I would actually get what I ordered. A 512GB SSD has come down in price, yes, but to get that plus 8GB of RAM in a pocketable form factor just seems a little too insane. Plus, they don't accept PayPal, which means virtually zero buyer protection if it doesn't show or what does show is not what was sold.

 

Apparently there's a version of this with a Core M3 (much less shitty) and 16GB of RAM out there too? I'm gonna have to hit up GearBest and AliExpress and see if I can find this thing on a site with a return policy that's (usually) worth a damn.

[Mr.Meerkat]

20 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Core M3 (much less shitty)

M series are just I series but downclocked so you kinda expect them to be not as shit. In fact, when it is single core, they are generally <5% slower than the equivalent core ix CPU. 

 

24 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

If I'm going to spend what it costs to get an Atom with decent specs around it, I'm going to want it to do more than play a 13-year-old game at 30 FPS. Anyone can go to Gearbest or AliExpress and find an $80-100ish Atom box with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage. Good luck getting it into Windows in less than ten minutes, and God help you if you ever try to use Chrome, but yeah, it will work. If you want an Atom-based system that's got 4GB of RAM and a 128GB storage setup, something truly capable of running 13-year-old games on Windows 10 at 30 FPS, you're looking at $240-280 for a decent box.

Maybe its just me but when you can get a x5-z8350, 4GB and 64GB eMMC, 10" tablet for <£80, you can't really say its a bad deal. Although I've not checked recent prices, This is what I bought over a year ago: 

and although the performance isn't anything spectacular, it has kept up to my expectations, especially running android where it plays 1080p without breaking a single sweat. Also, due to it having a somewhat mediocre eMMC, it starts up into Windows cold within 1 mins as it actually has relatively decent random I/O performance. 

I'm not saying it performs good or anything (I'd rather use my iPad any day, which can handle 3 apps open at the same time easily whereas this slightly struggles) but for £76, I can think of many worse way of spending me monies. 

[KuJoe]

One thing worth noting is that it looks like the Intel Atom x7-Z8750 has Quick Sync which would make it an excellent little video streaming device/Plex server since it can do hardware transcoding.

 

If that website didn't look really shady I would definitely pick one up for that price (even though I'm still waiting for this to arrive in the mail).

[KuJoe]

Oh man, I was going to place an order because that price is so tempting... glad I didn't. Here's a "review" I found of that website from last week:

Quote

I just bought something of directspsi.com. I didn’t even get an order confirmation. I called the number they had on the site and the number doesn’t exist. Damn it!!!

EDIT: Did some more digging and the domain was registered 12 days ago. AVOID!!!!!!

[aisle9]

6 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Maybe its just me but when you can get a x5-z8350, 4GB and 64GB eMMC, 10" tablet for <£80, you can't really say its a bad deal. Although I've not checked recent prices, This is what I bought over a year ago: 

 

and although the performance isn't anything spectacular, it has kept up to my expectations, especially running android where it plays 1080p without breaking a single sweat.

Running Android or a Linux distro changes everything for the Atom. Hell, it does for any low-end processor, whether that's an Atom, a Celeron or a Pentium Silver (which is basically just an Atom). Your tablet does have surprisingly decent hardware for an 80 GBP model, but it would still be far from ideal for actually doing anything on Windows 10.

[JoaoC]

I've the same problem. I want to cancel my pruchase has they didnt answer my questions about delivering or made any statement about the aquisition. It's a fraud I believe.

[darealsoulless]

That's cool but I wonder if those are really worth it. Like can you do the same things you could do on a 14 inch laptop? Or even better, a desktop PC?

[Canada EH]

On 12/3/2018 at 1:23 PM, aisle9 said:

I mean, aside from the fact that it looks like ass

I know what you mean, the silly faces that Linus does to cash in on a captive audience.