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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ozzuneoj86 - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
Seems a bit expensive for its capabilities. A 1.58Ghz Bay Trail is pretty slow for a non-mobile device.ganeshts - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
They run the CPU at 2.25 GHz (max. turbo speed) throughout the time the CPU is loaded. At this point of time, CPUs with such clocks are more than enough for thin-clients and basic browsing / word-processing [ well, that is what the market reception to the original ECS LIVA signified to ECS :) ]In the end, it is all a matter of 'horses for courses' - what fits the requirements of one person might be an overkill for someone else (isn't that why tablet PC sales have caused a decline in shipment of low-end notebooks / PCs?)
ozzuneoj86 - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
I see, I missed that about it running at its max turbo since it isn't limited thermally.I guess I just have trouble picturing the target market being anyone who actually knows what they are getting vs. what they need. Most of the places that I've seen thin clients used could easily just use a small ITX-sized desktop PC that is significantly faster, and (as is the case with this LIVA X) you generally pay a price premium for a thin client sized system. When you factor in the OS price, it seems unlikely that cost has anything to do with the purchase of a system like this, so that leaves size as the only real reason to get one.
My workplace replaced several Core 2 based itx-sized HP desktops a few years ago with these awful little WYSE thin clients. Everything takes longer, runs slower and now there is a tiny bit more desktop space for people to clutter paperwork that shoudn't be left out in the first place. I'm sure there will be some power savings, but it can't be much in relation to the cost of installing a bunch of new equipment, and they are already at their limit as far as capabilities. I give it another year before we have some new application that is too much for them to handle.
Obviously this LIVA system is faster, but it just doesn't seem like that many places are so constrained for space that PCs of this size are actually necessary, and for those that are, there are cheaper and faster alternatives, even at this price point (mostly due to the OS not being included).
kgh00007 - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
They need to sell a Windows 8.1 with Bing edition of these, the windows Licence increases the cost of the device by 1.5 times!!That's the biggest barrier to these cheaper mini PC's for me and for recommending them to anyone like family members!
Teknobug - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
hmm only dual core? I've been liking those Bay Trail Z37**'s.powerarmour - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
If a 59'C case temp isn't hot to touch, you probably need to visit the doctor!, 100'C core temps are ridiculous also, terrible design.ganeshts - Saturday, January 17, 2015 - link
The Zotac C-series with the Core i5-Y CPUs had chassis temperatures of the order of 75C. This is definitely much better.As for the 96 C core temp prior to throttling, there was a thermal pad placement issue in the media review samples. Seeing how this is similar to LIVA in terms of CPU performance and the fact that the material used for thermal protection is far superior, I have no doubt the units reaching the end user will have much lower core temperatures under *power virus* loads.
kmmatney - Sunday, January 18, 2015 - link
The temp is running furmark and Prime95 at the same time, which is a way higher load than normal. I've had computers that would crash while running that test, but were otherwise rock stable no matter what else I did.Oxford Guy - Monday, January 19, 2015 - link
Exactly. Who is ever going to use one of these for anything like that sort of load. It's bogus.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - link
I think the point of including an unrealistic scenario like furmark + prime95 is to stress the system in a way that induces a worst possible case situation. While most end users won't ever have that sort of thermal load on their hardware, doing this kind of testing in a review exposes potential flaws that wouldn't otherwise be discovered. I'd much rather someone does that kinda thing for me and uncovers a problem than having to figure it out for myself after I've made a purchase and have put it to use.