Tronsmart Draco unboxing

December 31, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

A bit late to the party, I know, but I finally received my Tronsmart Draco AW80.
Draco AW80 and Telos AW80 are basically the same product, the only difference is on the GBs or RAM (2 vs 4) and the internal eMMC storage (16 vs 32).
You could have great expectations from a device that has an 8-core CPU@2Ghz and 64-core GPU, plus Gigabit ethernet and dual-band wi-fi.
Practically these specs are a dream come true for many Mini PC enthusiasts… but does this device really lives up to the expectations?
I’ll answer this question in a another post, early next year.

Until then, here are the unboxing pictures.

	Tronsmart did a great job with the product box itself: it has a stylish black box that certainly catches your attention.
	Open the box and you’ll get to see the TV box itself, nicely wrapped.
	Draco AW80 accessories: they are all individually wrapped
	Draco AW80 accessories: power, USB cable, IR remote, HDMI and SATA cables
	The remote has “Defender” written on it, no clue why. There’s a layer of plastic coating above the Tronsmart logo on top, remove it and it will look better
	Side view: 2 USB ports, SD card, SATA external port for 3.5″ HDDs
	Back view with external Wi-fi antenna, Ethernet port, USB 3.0 (OTG), HDMI out, AV out, optical out ports

Windows 8.1

Meet Mr.Nuc, a tiny mini PC

December 27, 2014 Mike 2 Comments

[Update] – more info and more pictures can be found here.

It’s no secret to anyone that there are less and less desktop PC’s being sold everyday.
Technology evolves, people now have smartphones with 4GB RAM and tablets with 64-cores GPUs.
And what will happen to “traditional desktop PC’s”? They need to evolve.

Same as the previous post, you’ll read here first about something that will be announced at CES 2015.
So here’s the tiny palm-sized PC built around Intel I3’s 4th gen CPU , the “Mr. Nuc V6″ from Realan.

– dimensions (cm) : 11.8 x 11.8 x 5.1
– CPU: 22 nm Intel I3’s 4th gen, with Intel HD 4400
– Storage: 32GB mSATA SSD + you can add your own 2.5” HDD
– RAM : up to 16GB DDR3 (2 slots) – not provided!
– 4 USB 3.0 ports
– mini HDMI
– IR receiver (so you can add a remote to it)
– Mini DisplayPort (and one audio out)

It comes with a 4GB usb stick containing the drivers and can be mounted behind a monitor (or TV).
Comes with three flavors (black, white, red) and while it does have a small fan on the CPU the manufacturer claims it that the noise is at 20db, so basically you’ll barely hear it.
At 30W consumption in full load, this is a very interesting device.
Priced around $300.

Unboxing pictures via diybbs.

Android, Android MiniPCs, Windows 8.1, Wintel mini pc

Egreat 2015 roadmap

December 25, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

[Update] – more details about the Egreat Wintel Mini PCs can be found here.

A while ago I talked about Egreat and their plans.
Nothing major happened since then, no major products launched by Egreat (not outside China anyway).

But from what I’ve learned recently things are about to get better for the Chinese manufacturer.
We managed to get a sneak peek at the products that Egreat will announce at CES 2015:

	Egreat U10 Allwinner A80 octa-core CPU 2GB RAM, 16GB Gigabit ethernet+dual band wi-fi Bluetooth 4.0 Android 4.4
	Egreat I2 Intel Bay Trail 3735F CPU 2GB RAM, 32GB Bluetooth 4.0 Android/Windows 8
	Egreat I3 Intel Bay Trail 3735F CPU 2GB RAM, 32GB Bluetooth 4.0 Android/Windows 8
	Egreat I6 Intel Bay Trail 3735F CPU 2GB RAM, 32GB Bluetooth 4.0 Android/Windows 8
	Egreat A2 Realtek RTD1195 CPU External SATA port Android 4.4
	Egreat A6 Amlogic S812-H CPU (?) 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC Gigabit ethernet + dual band, 2.4GHz/5.0GHz 300M WiFi 4K/2K H.265/HEVC hardware decoding External SATA port Android 4.4
	Egreat A9 Mstar MSO9180 CPU 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC Gigabit Ethernet + dual band, 2.4GHz/5.0GHz 300M WiFi Internal 3.5” HDD Aluminum case with VFD Android 4.4 Can record from HDMI-IN in 1080P

Basically:
– Egreat takes a shot at the hottest CPU available now (Allwinner A80)- with it’s 8-cores and 64-cores CPU is expected to provide good performance for a while
– Egreat launches 3 “Wintel” models – they seem to share the same PCB, only different casing, which is not uncommon for Egreat
– Egreat A2, A6 and A9 are claimed to have full BD ISO support (including 3D), and they also have promised an UART port for “DIY development”
– also, they plan to launch internationally two Android-based game box devices, named Egreat K1 and respectively Egreat K3

Let’s see what will come out of this, 2015 could be an (E) great year 🙂

Android, Android MiniPCs

Finally a new RTD1195 device: Zappiti 4K

December 20, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

If you visited this blog before you might know that the Realtek RTD1195 platform was pretty much announced here.
Several months passed without any device actually being shipped, then I got an early build of EweatEW902 that I couldn’t actually review due to the board not being compatible with newer FW updates…
There were rumors about a Mede8er device with this CPU, but so far that device did not appear at all.

But enough history (and self-promotion:-) )

Today I learned that there’s a new RTD1195 device from the reputable french company Zappiti.
You might have heard about them before, they started with a pretty good media center software that scans your entire movie archive and then adds nicely formatted metadata for all your files.
Hardware-wise, they worked with Dune HD before and now they are launching a “Z”-branded device.

As usual with RTD1195 devices, this will have:
– dual core CPU
– dual-core GPU
– HDMI 1.4 (in and out)
– 1 x USB 3.0 and 2 x USB 2.0
– gigabit ethernet
– 2 x wi-fi antenna (802.11n only)
– internal 3.5” SATA, you can add a 6TB HDD (or smaller)
– included airmouse with qwerty keyboard (+ a standard IR remote)

But it does make quite a few interesting promises:
– 3D BD-ISO support,
– Pass through and stereo downmix (DTS, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD)
– HEVC, H.265 (many others) – video bitrates supported up to 120Mbit/s

[Update]
– Dolby Atmos
– Ultra HD and 4K viles (DivX, UHD, HEVC) are also expected to run smoothly
– available in January (can be pre-orderered from http://store.zappiti.com/ )

Android, Android MiniPCs

AC Ryan Veolo 4K

December 13, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

[Update – AC Ryan Veolo 4K is now available on Amazon – read here how to get a free Veo Navigator and 10% off with your purchase]
Back in 2012 when AC Ryan Europe filed for bankruptcy things didn’t look to good for the manufacturer.
But AC Ryan Asia/Pacific didn’t went away, they even launched a second version of their Veolo line (the “Veolo 2”) that proved to be not only smaller, better looking and cheaper than the original Veolo product.

Now it’s time for a third version, that appears very attractive (at least on paper):
– Rockchip RK3288 (quad-core, 1.8Ghz)
– GPU: Mali T764
– 2GB RAM, 16GB Nand flash (Nand, really AC Ryan??)

– HDMI 2.0
– Gigabit ethernet
– Dual-Band Wireless
– Bluetooth 4.0

Comes with Android 4.4 and it promises all major video formats, including h.265 and BD ISO.
AC Ryan took steps into designing their own movie-oriented UI, with cover art and synopsis auto-download.

could this be the best RK3288 device yet?

Mini PC DB – everything about Mini PCs

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Tronsmart Draco unboxing

Meet Mr.Nuc, a tiny mini PC

Egreat 2015 roadmap

Egreat U10

Egreat I2

Egreat I3

Egreat I6

Egreat A2

Egreat A6

Egreat A9

Finally a new RTD1195 device: Zappiti 4K

AC Ryan Veolo 4K

Mini PC Database