ECS Launches the Tiny Yet Mighty LIVA Q1 Series Mini PC

[btarunr]

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the global leading motherboard, Mini-PC, Notebooks, mobile device and smart city solutions provider, is pleased to announce the pocket-size yet multi-functional mini PC - LIVA Q1D/Q1L. Aiming at the growing demand of stay at home application, LIVA Q1 series provide smart solutions for work/study from home device and home entertainment. In addition, LIVA Q1 series is ideal for digital signage, thin-client or Terminal applications in versatile use-cases, including indoor displays for public facilities such as schools or libraries, healthcare, hospitality, business and retail.

LIVA Q1D/Q1L are build-in an ultra-power-efficient Intel Pentium / Celeron processors, equipped with 32/64 GB eMMC and a microSD slot to expand storage space. LIVA Q1 series support Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11ac enabling greater capacity for faster internet environments. It also features with Intel HD Graphics 500/505 to have stronger support for 4K videos playback. LIVA Q1 series design to build in a cooling fan in the ultra-small PC to keep the system stay cool and more stabilize.



Multiple ways to connect peripherals
LIVA Q1 series integrate varies kinds of I/O to support all your needs in one tiny PC that smaller than a mouse, including 2 USB 3.1 Gen1, 1 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI and Gigabit LAN. Besides HDMI, LIVA Q1D gears with DisplayPort for users to connect double screens to speed up work efficiency. LIVA Q1L equipped with 2 Gigabit LAN to ensure the stability of your internet access and it can be separated into internal and external internet for security needs. These kinds of applications can be used for families to set up NAS system and for companies to secure their classified information.

Connecting the world
Due to the high demand for internet, LIVA Q1 series provides diverse solutions for both LAN and wireless system. It supports Bluetooth 4.1 and wireless Internet - 802.11ac. With the most high-speed Internet access, you can view streamlined movies or YouTube in your home theater smoother.

Lifelike 4K Vision
Users can easily build a home theater with LIVA Q1 series by mounted behind TV without extra cable. LIVA Q1 series features with Intel HD Graphics 500/505 to support 4K visuals for users to have astounding visual experience while watching movies at home.



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[john_]

Mighty with Intel (Atom) Pentium / Celeron processors and eMMC.

What a joke.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I guess ECS didnt get the memo about how AMD are currently absolutely destroying the laptop market with their mobile CPUs

 

[ShurikN]

eMMC, instant fail.
Already have an atom with eMMC, never again.

 

[bonehead123]

A neat little package no doubt, but.... for any "new" 2020 rig:

A) No USB-C, NO buy, No excuses

B) No ax wireless, NO buy, No excuses

C) No BT 5x, NO buy, No excuses

D) 2-4GB Ram, hahahahaha....good luck running W10 wit dat...hahahahaha ..

 

[micropage7]

al least emmc that they use is 120Gb, 32 or 64 is useless for pc
celeron or atom is fine for that case,but lack of storage space is NO

 

[Chrispy_]

al least emmc that they use is 120Gb, 32 or 64 is useless for pc
celeron or atom is fine for that case,but lack of storage space is NO

This is amazing; People whining about ports and storage simply don't understand the intended market for something of this spec and form factor.
3xUSB, dual NIC and HDMI is already incredible for a box that rivals an R.Pi

I guess ECS didnt get the memo about how AMD are currently absolutely destroying the laptop market with their mobile CPUs

AFAIK, AMD don't even make anything in this space. Their current offering at this level is Beema/Mullins A4/A6/A10 from 2014 based on the Jaguar cores from an original XBOne.

eMMC, instant fail.
Already have an atom with eMMC, never again.

That was the old Atom at fault most likely - eMMC is still better than spinning rust in most cases, and I run (as is common practice) my ESX datacenter OS off SD Cards in my server farms. It's not the storage that made old Atoms useless, it was the old Bonnel-core in-order Atom architecture that Intel has retired (for good reason, it was shit!).

 

[TheUn4seen]

A neat little package no doubt, but.... for any "new" 2020 rig:

A) No USB-C, NO buy, No excuses

B) No ax wireless, NO buy, No excuses

C) No BT 5x, NO buy, No excuses

D) 2-4GB Ram, hahahahaha....good luck running W10 wit dat...hahahahaha ..

Personally I have no use for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in stationary computers, and USB-C is, well, a similar story. I have it in my computers and it's just a waste of space. Actually, twice over - manufacturers could use the lower space requirement to fit more of such ports in a given space but choose not to. There are very few peripherals that use type-C (well, there are phones, but there is no need to connect a phone to a computer by USB for purpose other than rooting since probably mid-2010's) and USB-C is just a mess as a whole.
But I agree the amount of RAM in this "tiny but mighty" device is laughable, as well as the CPU choice for daily use.
On the other hand, if the price is reasonable I'll buy one or two. It probably uses the standard 211AT/219V LAN config, so can be a pretty nifty little Pfsense box.

 

[Zareek]

This is amazing; People whining about ports and storage simply don't understand the intended market for something of this spec and form factor.
3xUSB, dual NIC and HDMI is already incredible for a box that rivals an R.Pi


AFAIK, AMD don't even make anything in this space. Their current offering at this level is Beema/Mullins A4/A6/A10 from 2014 based on the Jaguar cores from an original XBOne.


That was the old Atom at fault most likely - eMMC is still better than spinning rust in most cases, and I run (as is common practice) my ESX datacenter OS off SD Cards in my server farms. It's not the storage that made old Atoms useless, it was the old Bonnel-core in-order Atom architecture that Intel has retired (for good reason, it was shit!).

These little Atom PCs have a lot of uses and are more than enough for grandma to watch youtube and look up her knitting patterns. I would like to see these little PCs make the jump to 8GB RAM and 120GB eMMC thou.

Personally I have no use for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in stationary computers, and USB-C is, well, a similar story. I have it in my computers and it's just a waste of space. Actually, twice over - manufacturers could use the lower space requirement to fit more of such ports in a given space but choose not to. There are very few peripherals that use type-C (well, there are phones, but there is no need to connect a phone to a computer by USB for purpose other than rooting since probably mid-2010's) and USB-C is just a mess as a whole.
But I agree the amount of RAM in this "tiny but mighty" device is laughable, as well as the CPU choice for daily use.
On the other hand, if the price is reasonable I'll buy one or two. It probably uses the standard 211AT/219V LAN config, so can be a pretty nifty little Pfsense box.

I was thinking the same thing, heck of a PFSense box if the price is right.

 

[Chrispy_]

These little Atom PCs have a lot of uses and are more than enough for grandma to watch youtube and look up her knitting patterns. I would like to see these little PCs make the jump to 8GB RAM and 120GB eMMC thou.

Yeah, 8GB/128SSD would make it a more viable windows PC, but these aren't really aimed at Windows users. 2016 Server Core, or Chrome(ium) OS perhaps, but there are better options (with Wifi, Bluetooth, and USB-C) for Windows users, so even then it's not really a natural fit...

 

[silentbogo]

It's all about price. Most of their older thin client systems of this class cost around $200 (which is relatively fair for the complete package), and this one even with these unimpressive specs is more than enough for many applications.
For example, I still have an Atom D525 running NAS at the office, along with similarly-specced N4205 ITX rig that handles webmail and few other work-related web-apps. The only reason D525 gets retired this fall, is its age and not lack of performance.

Another thing , is that Q1 series is mostly marketed for it's 4K video playback capabilities (at least that's where you get an accent on ECS product page), which roughly translates to multimedia, ad banners, and video kiosks. Even 2GB of RAM is enough to run 4K H264/265 under Linux/Android/ChromeOS.
Q1L is also perfect for small office router/firewall. If it ever gets to Ukrainian market, I'd probably get one or two for work(the 4/64GB version most likely).

But I agree the amount of RAM in this "tiny but mighty" device is laughable, as well as the CPU choice for daily use.

I think ECS marketing are simply overreaching with this thing (or overselling, to be more precise). 2GB RAM paired with 32GB EMMC is weak even for ARM dev. boards of yesteryear. But in current situation it's good enough to run RDP on 32-bit Windows 10 (especially if it's W10 Enterprise LTSB v1607 or older), or browse web and edit text in Chrome OS or some lightweight Linux distro, or being used as intended - with some flavor of thin client OS. Heck, most "remote education" workflows boil down to simple video conferencing, IM chats, and taking timed tests on school website. Not many schools or colleges have means to re-create EDX or quickly record dozens of lectures, so they simply improvise. It's an educational cluster#$%k, but it is what it is (at least for the nearest future).
Remote workplaces also gain traction. Even my technically illiterate friend who owns a local bakery managed to move his booking and accounting to VPS and set up RDP on his shitty Kabini netbook without calling me even once (called later just to brag that he's an IT guru now).

Yeah, 8GB/128SSD would make it a more viable windows PC, but these aren't really aimed at Windows users.

It would also double its price, which would force it to compete with beefier and far more superior mini-PCs and barebones.
At $200 or less, all they have in terms of competition, is basically a LattePanda in a cardboard coffin, or overstock 1st gen NUCs (I'm not counting unbranded Chinese industrial mini-PCs for now).

 

[ShurikN]

2GB RAM paired with 32GB EMMC is weak even for ARM dev. boards of yesteryear. But in current situation it's good enough to run RDP on 32-bit Windows 10 (especially if it's W10 Enterprise LTSB v1607 or older), or browse web and edit text in Chrome OS or some lightweight Linux distro, or being used as intended - with some flavor of thin client OS.

I don't know if you have, but I've been using W10 on 2GB of ram for a long time, and trust me when I say the experience is horrible. Even light web browsing is excruciating. Everything kinda "works", but it's not something I would recommend to anyone.

 

[silentbogo]

I don't know if you have, but I've been using W10 on 2GB of ram for a long time, and trust me when I say the experience is horrible.

That's why I mentioned ChromeOS. The only way you can kinda-browse in W10, is by running stripped-down 1511 with some tweaks, or the IoT(e.g. Enterprise LTSC).
Pretty much the same setup that's been used in all older Windows 10 tablets, when MS gave away licenses to portables for free.
I still have a Thinkpad Tablet 2 in my office somewhere. It has awful specs, but overall experience was passable. Used it mostly as an external display for my shitty USB oscilloscope and even shittier toy microscope in my workshop. And what's even funnier, is that my actual first experience with Windows 10 was on an awful "spare" rig with A4-5300B APU and 2GB DDR3 running in single-channel, and at the time I thought it was quite snappy )))

 

[Keullo-e]

A neat little package no doubt, but.... for any "new" 2020 rig:

A) No USB-C, NO buy, No excuses

B) No ax wireless, NO buy, No excuses

C) No BT 5x, NO buy, No excuses

D) 2-4GB Ram, hahahahaha....good luck running W10 wit dat...hahahahaha ..

A) This can be a con to some people, but why not use just an USB A-C cable?
B) I'm posting ATM at n wireless, also works flawlessly with online gaming
C) Xbox controller for example works flawlessly with a cheap BT4.0 dongle, I don't see any problems there
D) 4GB is fine for watching cat videos and reading news

Though this is pure crap, that's for sure. Slow Atom-class CPU and slow eMMC storage with a little capacity.

 

[Caring1]

A) This can be a con to some people, but why not use just an USB A-C cable?

Different speeds between A and C.

 

[Keullo-e]

Different speeds between A and C.

True dat, seems to be a gen1 AKA USB3.0.

 

[ShurikN]

True dat, seems to be a gen1 AKA USB3.0.

Ahh yes, the joys of USB3 version naming.

 

[BArms]

I wish TPU would insist on publishing prices along with press releas... er.. "stories".

 

[Chrispy_]

Ahh yes, the joys of USB3 version naming.

USB3 should have just been called, USB3 5Gb, USB3 10Gb, USB3 20Gb etc
Everyone knows what speed SATA 3Gb and SATA 6Gb run at, who gives a damn what generation it is, all anyone cares about is whether it's fast enough to do what they want with it.

 

[Zareek]

USB3 should have just been called, USB3 5Gb, USB3 10Gb, USB3 20Gb etc
Everyone knows what speed SATA 3Gb and SATA 6Gb run at, who gives a damn what generation it is, all anyone cares about is whether it's fast enough to do what they want with it.

I would have preferred just limited speed to versions. Change all connectors to USB C after USB 3.0 . Thunderbolt should have to use a different connector or just be part of a USB standard.

USB 3.0 5Gbps
USB 3.1 10Gbps
USB 3.2 20Gbps

What we have now is a mess! Hopefully they get their crap together for USB 4.

 

[Phase polar]

A neat little package no doubt, but.... for any "new" 2020 rig:

A) No USB-C, NO buy, No excuses

B) No ax wireless, NO buy, No excuses

C) No BT 5x, NO buy, No excuses

D) 2-4GB Ram, hahahahaha....good luck running W10 wit dat...hahahahaha ..

No buy No excuses..
No Luck either?

 

[bonehead123]

No buy No excuses..
No Luck either?

???