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I**R
A PC with a lot of heart and an old soul
When you've been building PCs for over 25 years from the days of DOS 4 and Windows 3.0, you can really appreciate something like this; a complete mini-PC, and not much bigger than a Mounds bar. You will recognize that the pace of things has changed when you have to wait for things like web page loading, settings screens populating, and the sound of a system fan whirring. If you don't mind this, ACEPC has a budget minded NUC offering in a candy bar form factor that actually works like a PC should. For example, web throughput and USB 3.0 speeds are reasonably fast and graphics are understated, again, if you are comparing it to most desktop PCs built within the last 5 years. Instead, I'd compare it's procesing speed and response times to my 8GB Thinkpad x200s Core Duo laptop, running at 1.96Mhz from 2010 running Windows 10 Pro.Out of curiosity more than anything, I bought the 4GB/64GB Windows 10 Pro version. Originally, ACEPC had the same config in Windows 10 Home (both 64-bit OSs) but now only sell the more technically-capable Pro version. Although there isn't much difference in performance between Pro and Home, I did manage to disable more features (like Cortana's voice and the Aero settings) that chew up CPU idle time. I also found that the PC was more prone to thermal throttling and soft reboots under Home as well.The main purpose of this sort of PC is to use in hotel and presentation rooms, when you don't want to travel with a PC laptop or a Surface tablet. However, to make it work comfortably, you may need to carry a mini BT keyboard/mouse (or one the Logitech wireless Unified USB combos, like my K400+, which will access the BIOS level), where ever you can find an HDMI input on a screen (many hotel rooms have smart tvs which are set with some weird "hospitality setting" and they sometimes shut down these ports or prevent you from accessing them from the rear panel). Because of this, your mileage may vary, esp. if you only carry this device expecting to be immediately productive. You will find the effort worthwhile, though, if you really don't want to travel with a luggable.I have heard that Ubuntu Linux as well as other 64-bit Linux OS's will run on this, but again, YMMV, esp. when it comes to drivers and stable platform builds. For $150, you can play around all you like as long as you can get the factory OS build loaded on the micro SD card (I recommend you max it out at 128 GB) as well as your other app installers, like Libre Office and Steam. I played a couple of low fi Steam games at lower resolution and it's passable, and far from an amazing graphics experience.The BIOS is a typical UEMI AMI Megatrends layout with all of the usual suspects settings. There is more emphasis on thermal settings and trusted platform compatibility, but no way that I have found to cycle/shutdown the fan, which runs constantly. Oddly enough, there is no way to backup the BIOS or restore to factory BIOS, so if you are trying to flash away your instability issues.From my personal experience, ACEPC is responsive and friendly and respond quickly through the Amazon Message Center. There is also the ACEPC support website but I don't recommend searching for drivers, factory OS builds or BIOS images there. Instead, when you reach them through AMC, they will direct you to a different Dropbox page for things like the factory OS build for the T5/T8.I know that one day we'll look back at the ACEPC T5 and say, remember when a PC looked like a candy bar, the way we look at rotary phones and cellphone suitcases. For now, though, the technology is pretty cool.
C**Y
45gb out of 64gb left after setup
I have the 4gb/64gb drive unit. To be used as a travel computer, I think it works well at that task. Windows 10 installed no problem; the HDMI output is perfect.It is, however SLOW. It could be my wifi, in another room. Most all of these mini computer units use the same slow Intel chip. If there was a mini with a fast chip and a larger drive, I don't think one could tell the difference between it and a desktop computer!It only has two USB ports, which is enough -- hubs are available, even powered hubs. If you only plug in a keyboard and a mouse, that's fine. Most keyboards and mice don't require a powered hub.It does have a fan inside. I did not find the noise bothersome. If I have it hanging down below the tabletop, I really can't hear it. The unit gets only barely warm, not at all hot. I would rather have a small fan running to prolong unit life, then to have one that got all hot and bothered.To really test the speed of the unit I should plug it directly into Ethernet, but there is no Ethernet jack.After Windows installation (which was flawless and only took a few minutes), I had 45gb left on a 64gb drive. That's more than enough space for me. You can install a 128gb micro SD card, but programs aren't automatically installed on it, so I say don't bother! The price of micro SD cards has really gone down recently, so no big investment either way.Overall I'm very satistifed. No buffering on Youtube videos once they begin. Amazing that this entire computer can go into ones pocket!! --
P**O
Better than I expected!
Ok, first off, my review is for the 4GB/64GB version. When I bought it, I had fairly low expectations. So I was very pleasantly surprised when this little box blew those expectations right out the window.My original thought when I first bought it, beyond me just being a gadget nut and wanting a new toy, was that I'd use it when traveling and staying in hotels, bypassing the need to lug around a laptop. I am a Systems Administrator by trade, so I have a modestly tricked-out network at home with a dedicated micro-server running VPN, SFTP, PLEX, web, and streaming music services. My idea was to install my VPN client on this little stick PC in order to be able to remote into one of my machines at home using RDP (Remote Desktop). That way, no matter how slow this little PC would be, I knew that if it purportedly could run 4K video, it should have more than enough horsepower to at least be able to act as a dummy-terminal (thin client), with whatever desktop I remoted into at home supplying the actual computing power. That way I could do all my work and actually play my modern games on this thing as well, no matter where in the world I was.When I actually got it and plugged it in, I was rather surprised at how quickly it booted. Now, granted, it's no speed demon. But, my expectation was that I would power it on and then have go make myself a sandwich or something before it booted into Windows. However, surprisingly, this was simply not the case. I think, for the initial boot, it was probably 15-20 seconds to get to the initial configuration screen, and less than that after the configuration phase from then on. Physically speaking, for such a small system the relative snappy response of the operating system was rather gratifying. I did end up getting a 128GB SD card and installed Chrome browser and a few other smaller apps on it as well because of how well it performed. Now, it's not going to be as fast or have as much grunt as a brand new business PC, but for what it is, it's no slouch either.Everything worked as expected right out of the box except for one thing: The Bluetooth. I bought a special Bluetooth fold-away travel keyboard and mouse for this thing and could only ever get it to work for seconds at a time. I even bought a separate Bluetooth dongle hoping to get it to work correctly, but even with that, I could only get the mouse to work right after install and until I stopped moving it. From then on it was simply inactive, though showing it to be still connected in the system, and there was no way to get it back until I either power-cycled the Bluetooth circuit or de- and then re-installed the mouse again. I ended up having to get a 2.4GHz micro-keyboard with its own dedicated dongle instead.Conclusion: despite its size, this little stick PC is NOT just another toy. It delivers (almost, e.g. the Bluetooth) everything it promises and you may actually be surprised by the performance. You'll have a lot of fun bar-betting your friends that this little candy-bar-sized plastic box is, indeed, a fully functional Windows 10 pro PC, with all the same bells and whistles that most consumer-grade home PC's have as well. At such a price point, you just can't beat it and, personally, I'll be recommending them to my management team as a cost effective solution to deploy anywhere a single-monitor PC is needed from now on. If they ever come out with a version that can run two or more monitors they'll corner the business PC market. I guarantee it.
Trustpilot
3 weeks ago
3 days ago
