ECS today rolled out the LIVA Z Plus ZE mini-PC featuring legacy connectivity, combined with otherwise modern hardware, which puts its applications halfway between retail/POS (point of sale) and educational/robotics. The mini-PC features four RS232 serial COM ports, so you can directly plug in POS peripherals such as barcode/RFID scanners, receipt printers, credit card POS machines, electronic weighing scales, etc. It comes with rather powerful 7th generation "Kaby Lake" SoC options, including Celeron 3965U, Core i3-7100U, Core i5-7200U, and i5-7500U, bolstered by Intel vPro.

Besides factory-fitted SoCs, the LIVA Z Plus ZE comes with two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory, and one M.2-2242 slot with both PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring. Besides the four RS232 ports, it features four USB 3.0 ports (three type-A, one type-C), two 1 GbE wired network interfaces, 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0 WLAN, stereo HD audio, and display outputs that include one each of HDMI 1.4 and miniDisplayPort. Measuring 117 mm x 128 mm x 51 mm (WxDxH), it supports VESA mounting, which lets you tuck it away behind your monitor. It draws power from an external 65W power brick.