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ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit

cadaveca

cadaveca

My name is Dave
Joined
Apr 10, 2006
Messages
17,245 (2.46/day)
Today, we take a look at ECS's LIVA Mini PC Kit, a small and affordable PC with very low power consumption, a small price, and lightweight computing capabilities. With a sub-US$200 price tag, expecting top-notch performance would be ill advised, yet what can you get for $200 that fits in the palm of your hand? An ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit, of course.

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Wow, this is a cool little device. I would like to see at least a DP (any form, even mini) and/or a DVI-I instead of the DSUB/VGA. Also a MIC in would make this little thing a good fit for many situations.

The unidentifiable chip is actually an Intersil ISL95837 and it is indeed a 1+1 voltage regulator.

EDIT: Actually the audio jack is of the COMBO variety. It includes both Stereo Out and MIC IN functionality, similar to the jack found in mobile phones.
 
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I'm typing from it now.

Interesting about the MIC port, however, without a cable to make use of it properly... well...you need to spend more money for that, which is kind of outside the product's intent of bringing the most affordable product. I really wish there was a cable, or a separate port. That would make this device pretty much perfect in my eyes.
 
Hmm, I dream of a mobile Kaveri in one of these. An M2 port and say...6GB RAM?

Yea, that's the ticket. ;)

Pretty nice little box though. I can see more than a few hundred uses for it, as is.

Edit* Oh, and Thanks Dave!! Nice work, as per usual!! :toast:

img
;)
 
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cadaveca said:
I'm typing from it now.

Interesting about the MIC port, however, without a cable to make use of it properly... well...you need to spend more money for that, which is kind of outside the product's intent of bringing the most affordable product. I really wish there was a cable, or a separate port. That would make this device pretty much perfect in my eyes.
Click to expand...

Adapters cost from 5 bucks on Amazon, maybe even less, depending on how fancy you need it to look. Not that big of a deal. Or you could use the headphones that came with your mobile phone. So it won't affect the value that much.

I do think that such an adapter should be included in the box.
 
For sure. Yet, I do understand that including one might have pushed the cost up a couple of bucks, and maybe broached the $200 mark. So I can deal with it, for sure.
 
That's such a cute little box, it is almost as small as the plug ahaha :)
 
thats a good question, is it mini pci-e with usb i think so the answer might be no.....

you could use a usb wifi outside, then add a mini pci-e sata card and add any 2,5 Sata drive if you can fit it :-P
or just use a sata DOM or an msata adatper to sata then its more like a 1,8" SSD...

it might server as a small web/fileserver then....


i love how small it is, rasberry pi desktop size !
 
The only negative point for this setup is the low storage space so if someone succeeds to install an extra internal drive, may be SSD or HDD, it would be excellent.
 
This is the worst review I've read on this site. I mean, yes, performance numbers are probably not that important in this case, but this is the first time I've ever read a review here where the CPU or GPU is not even mentioned. I mean WTF is it? Pentium? Celeron? Atom? How about core count? Speed? What GPU does it have? Can it run HD video properly? Maybe that's not that important to you but to 99% of people wanting to buy such a thing it probably is. I can write a review like you did in 10 minutes, I would never do such a thing though...
 
Dave, I was curious as to which OS you installed. It seems that 32gb for Windows would be kind of tight.
 
brian111 said:
Dave, I was curious as to which OS you installed. It seems that 32gb for Windows would be kind of tight.
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It only supports Windows 8.1 right now, install leaves 17.5 GB available.

OS came pre-installed on mine, retail will not have this pleasure.

And yeah, the LIVA has some limitations, but for under $200, you have to expect as much.
 
cadaveca said:
It only supports Windows 8.1 right now, install leaves 12 GB available.

OS came pre-installed on mine, retail will not have this pleasure.

And yeah, the LIVA has some limitations, but for under $200, you have to expect as much.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it definitely offers a lot for the price. I guess if more storage was needed an external device could be used, although I think web browsing and other very light activities are what most people will be using these for.
 
Yeah, that's what ECS was thinking, it seems, and this is reiterated on their marketing page for the LIVA. I mean, they don't put much specs-wise there either.

USB 3.0 port is for external storage, IMHO. USB 2.0 to hub in monitor, keyboard/mouse plug in that. Those that use for HTPC use will likely use wireless keyboard/mouse combo, needing only that one USB 2.0 port, so most scenarios are covered.

I love the fact that it is fanless. Yeah, its is a bit slow compared to my 4960X. But given that it has a Celeron in it...I was shocked to find it supports two threads. :roll:And it's not HT, either..it's two real cores.

ECS cannot possibly be making much money off of these things, if any.
 
I understand that ECS requested no benchmarks, but its these low power cpu's I want to see benchmarks the most on. We know the 4960X is fast, and pretty top of the line, but a slow celeron like this has a lot of cpu's with similar performance. The competition sorta speak intel, amd, arm, via whoever can match it. It is not only who can have X amount of performance, but how much power they use while doing it.

On future reviews, if possible, I would like to see benchmarks with performance per dollar and performance per watt like W1zzards gpu reviews.
 
james888 said:
I understand that ECS requested no benchmarks, but its these low power cpu's I want to see benchmarks the most on. We know the 4960X is fast, and pretty top of the line, but a slow celeron like this has a lot of cpu's with similar performance. The competition sorta speak intel, amd, arm, via whoever can match it. It is not only who can have X amount of performance, but how much power they use while doing it.

On future reviews, if possible, I would like to see benchmarks with performance per dollar and performance per watt like W1zzards gpu reviews.
Click to expand...

performance per watt is possible, I suppose. Per $$ is not quite possible as features on systems like this are going to change, and as such, this metric may give the wrong impression. I had considered the same with memory and board reviews, but it's not really possible there either.

If I had some hardware that was similar in regards to performance, I would have done some benchmarks. Like Intel Celeron 807/847/1037U (NM70) or Intel Atom D2550 would work, but at the same time, I'm not about to spend money on hardware like this just to review a $200 item.

I mean, if I was an employee of TPU, getting paid for my time and all expenses covered, man, I'd do whatever you guys asked for when it comes to reviews. AS it is now, I have to balance my time, and my money, when it comes to reviews, while trying to meet your needs. That's a very delicate balance, let me tell you.


It's not like I rated this as a 10/10. It does have some short comings. However, if it is successful, and we see this design further iterated on, in 3-4 years I think we'll have some really nice capabilities within this sort of "form factor". Until then, devices like this are not going to meet everyone's needs. Really, I'd have liked to give it a 10/10, because I think ECS did exactly what they wanted with this, and the final score really reflects what I knew you guys were going to say, which was "where are the benchmarks".

I now use this ECS LIVA box about 12 hours a day. I only power up the 4960X rig when about to game. Do I have to wait sometimes because this box is rather slow...yep. Do I care that it is slow? Nope.
 
Hi, sorry. I cannot say 100% no, but according to the documentation included, the NGFF "E type" slot supports wireless only. So 99.9999999%, no, no mSATA here. M.2, maybe, but likely no given the key-type listed.


This is similar to ASUS' mPCIE COMBOII devices, which features slot for wireless on one side, and another slot for storage on the other.

The manual also indicates that additional storage is available via USB flash drive.
 
thanks for the review dave, good read and really no reason to bench, the baytrail series is enough for any basic task and very light indie games...but htpc, or office pc would be silent and power sipping!

thanks for all the extra info in this thread too
 
might be missing the point thelostswede. this already has storage and ram, wifi, everything to get you going, through a linux distro on it and use network storage and you are gold
 
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