ECS LIVA X Review: A Fanless Bay Trail-M mini-PC
by Ganesh T S on January 16, 2015 11:30 AM ESTFinal Words
The ECS LIVA X provided us with an opportunity to see how ECS could improve upon the baseline created by the ECS LIVA. We are happy to see that the LIVA X manages to fix many of the shortcomings without sacrificing any of the advantages brought forward by the LIVA. The misplaced thermal pads were a bit of a downer, but, considering that the LIVA had no thermal throttling issues and the heat sink is physically much better in the LIVA X, we have no doubt that customer shipments will not have any problems on that front.
The absence of SODIMM slots reduce the BOM cost and the eventual end-price for consumers (which is the reason the ECS LIVA X is cheaper than a Bay Trail NUC). A mSATA port makes an appearance for users interested in running Windows 7 (which doesn't have an eMMC driver). The Wi-Fi card came pre-installed, and the unit was good to go right after purchase, unlike the LIVA. The LIVA X provides an additional USB port and they are all in the front panel - that is a good decision considering the typical use case for such mini-PCs. The vertical orientation of the HDMI port also saves some space on the read panel, giving it a more uncluttered look.
The Celeron N2808 has Quick Sync enabled, and this provides some interesting use-cases. The availabiligy of a 64 GB SKU at launch is also welcome. 32 GB is not enough once a couple of Windows updates get installed.
Pricing is the final aspect that we will talk about. The 32 GB eMMC version will have a MSRP of $210, while the 64 GB version we evaluated will come in at $250. This is with 4 GB of RAM, but no OS. $250 is definitely a bit steep when we look at the competition. Particularly, the Zotac CI320 nano PLUS model with Win 8.1 + Bing sells for $252 with the operating system. It has a quad-core CPU and adopts passive cooling, just like the LIVA X. It has the 64 GB storage drive and DRAM replaceable too, in case things go wrong with those components. The WLAN card (1x1 802.11ac) is also better in the CI320 nano compared to the LIVA X (1x1 802.11n). The LIVA X does have 2 GB of RAM extra and a different industrial design (approximately the same volume, though). We still believe pricing must be much lower for better market reception. Other than that aspect, the ECS LIVA X ticks all the right boxes in terms of what users expect out of a passively cooled mini-PC.
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Murloc - Sunday, January 18, 2015 - link
a smartphone is good enough to read recipes, there's no extensive writing anyway.Utnnyan - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
Do you cook? You need something that you don't have to hold in your hand. We have a small mini-pc with a LCD in our kitchen and the reason we got it was because my wife was sick and tired of viewing recipes on her iPhone (and even the 6 wasn't cutting it).speculatrix - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
get a waterproof tablet like the Sony Z tablets and the stand with the magnetic charger. you won't kill it if you splash water on it.Wwalter ones - Friday, January 16, 2015 - link
Any thoughts on using this as the receiving pc to stream steam games at 1080p?BigLan - Friday, January 16, 2015 - link
Could ECS release a version of this with Windows 8/bing? It'd save users a bunch compared to having to buy a separate windows license.sonicmerlin - Friday, January 16, 2015 - link
So could you connect a USB cablecard tuner and an HDD and turn this into a DVR?mm0zct - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I'm using an original LIVA as an excellent DVR/TV tuner using a USB DVB-T tuner (I'm in the UK).A USB3.0 hard disk provides storage for recorded TV, along side the growing mkv collection as I work my way through my DVD and BluRay collection. The windows media centre is probably the best Freeview TV interface I've ever used, unfortunately it requires 8.1pro plus another $10 or something for the media centre, but on the LivaX you can run Windows7 on an ssd, which comes with media centre, or just use Kodi. The advantage of using Windows 8.1 is that the "Modern" UI works fairly well on a TV, but unfortunately doesn't interact well with the media centre remote, so a keyboard/touchpad or accelerometer-wand hybrid is recommended for controlling it.
flyingpants1 - Friday, January 16, 2015 - link
Mini-ITX is still better for 90% of consumer applications.zodiacfml - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
look at that power consumption. they should have maintained that usb power source since most displays have USB already. I imagine putting this on top of a ceiling mounted projector.the only value would be its VGA interface. can't wait for Intel's Compute Stick.
ganeshts - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
The problem is that the power consumption starts ramping up when one adds a mSATA disk and adds power-hungry peripherals on the three USB ports. Given those capabilities, it is impossible for ECS to get by with a micro-USB power connector. There are no commercial 'wall-warts' with a micro-USB power connector that can deliver upwards of 30 W.