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Review: Shuttle NC01U PC Reviewed by: J.Reynolds Provided by: Shuttle |
Welcome to Myce’s review of Shuttle’s NC01U Mini PC
(hereafter referred to as the NC01U).
The NC01U and other models in the NC01 series can be
purchased as a barebones PC (where the customer adds components such as memory,
storage, operating system) or as a complete system.
Shuttle was kind enough to send a prebuilt system to Myce
for review, with
- 8 GB (2 x 4GB) of
DDR3L memory
- 128 GB SSD (Sandisk SD8SBAT128G1122)
- Intel Celeron
3205U (Dual core, 2 x 1.5 GHz)
- Win 10 Pro
We understand that this prebuilt system has the model
designation of NC0100B.
European customers may configure and order Shuttle complete
systems using Shuttle’s "Systems Configurator" at www.shuttle.eu/systems.
The NC01 series may also be supplied with Intel Core I3, I5
and I7 CPUs.
The first thing that hit me when I unpacked the NC01U was
how incredibly small it is. To give you a feel here’s a picture of it sitting
on top of a few CDs –
This is the smallest PC Shuttle has produced for many years.
Shuttle
Shuttle Inc, was founded in 1983 and its headquarters is
based in Taipei, Taiwan. Shuttle specialises in the design and production of
’Small Form Factor’ (SFF), or ‘Mini’, PCs. Since 2001 Shuttle’s cube shaped PCs
have been at the core of their success. Shuttle's products are used extensively
by systems integrators, VARs, OEMs, and consumers; all of which have learned to
bank on the products’ high reliability and build quality. Shuttle now has a
world-wide presence with a network of branch offices based in Germany, the US,
and Japan. For more information please see Shuttle’s website here.
In the future Shuttle wishes "to continue
to meet the requirements of consumers excellently and seeks to provide further
user-friendly solutions of consumer electronics for the digital home
environment".
Actually, SFF originally stood for ‘Shuttle
Form Factor’ and overtime became known as ‘Small Form Factor’. SFF is
typically used for any computer that has a smaller platform than a microATX
motherboard. With the advent of Intel’s NUC (‘Next Unit of Computing’) and
other so called Ultra-Compact Form Factor Products in recent times, Shuttle faces
greater competition but I feel their experience in this market segment will
give them an ongoing advantage.
Market Positioning and Specification
Market Positioning
This is how Shuttle positions the NC01 Series –
Specification
Here is Shuttle’s specification for the NC01U –
Product Images
Here are some pictures of the NC01U –
I find the NS01U to be an attractive, well built, and classy
product.
Connectivity
Here is a picture of the connections supported by the NC01U
-
You will notice that the NC01U includes a legacy COM port,
which makes it ideal for hosting many devices such as those used for taking digital
signatures or for many other commercial and scientific purposes.
Now let's head to the next page, to look at the results
of some testing we performed…
NEW PAGE NEW PAGE NEW PAGE NEW PAGE
Testing
I used the NC01U in our living room plugged, via HDMI, into
an HD (1080p) TV for a few weeks. It worked faultlessly as a client for
rendering HD video from my home network and streaming content from the
internet. There was no objection from my wife (who usually objects strongly to
any of my ‘noisy/ugly’ PC equipment invading the living room) and she actually
liked the NC01U’s size and looks (believe me, this is a major achievement!).
For interest, I also ran a few tests as follows -
Performance
To give readers a good understanding of the performance that
can be expected from the NC01U (with the Intel Celeron 3205U CPU) I ran the
conventional ‘Home’ benchmark from the excellent PCMark8 benchmarking suite.
Here are the results -
You can see that the NC01U achieved an overall score of
1865.
Now let’s drill down to the result details view -
You can see here that the CPU and GPU temperatures were well
managed throughout the benchmark and, as would be expected, the CPU and GPU
temperatures rose during the ‘Casual Gaming’ phase. We’ll take a closer look at
the NC01U’s cooling capability in the Stability test, below.
We then went online to see how the NC01U’s results compare with
others -
You can see here PCMark8 reports that the NC01U’s score is
equivalent to a ‘Gaming laptop’ – not bad for a dinky little mini PC.
Stability Test
One of the major stumbling blocks for ultra small form
factor PCs can often be unsatisfactory CPU cooling, which can cause the CPU to
throttle (particularly when under a sustained load) and thus is an area where
Shuttle’s experience in manufacturing mini PCs can be expected to count.
For stability testing I used the excellent AIDA 64 stability
test. Here is a picture of the results –
This shows a 14 minute stability test.
The initial idle temperature, as recorded by Aida 64, was 37
degrees C.
The CPU, FPU, Cache, and System Memory were then stressed
simultaneously for about 12 minutes, and the temperatures peaked at 44 degrees
C.
For the final 2 minutes the FPU was stressed alone (which
typically generates the most heat from the CPU) and temperatures peaked at 46
degrees C.
The NC01 series includes a tiny fan based cooler and, as
would be expected, this blew at its strongest throughout the stress test,
however the noise did not become offensive at any time. During normal use the
NC01 series is acceptably quiet.
I’m impressed by Shuttle’s obvious expertise in this area.
Storage
The NC0100B model that I tested came with a 128GB Sandisk
SD8SBAT128G1122 SATA 3 SSD.
Here is the result from an AS SSD benchmark –
Quite impressive, for a tiny PC!
Now let's head to the next page, to look at the
Conclusions of this review.....
The NC01U is incredibly small!
It looks classy, it performs well, it is remarkably stable
when stressed, and it offers excellent connectivity.
If you are in the market for an ultra small PC then this is
one I can wholeheartedly recommend.
I am pleased to award the Shuttle NC01U Myce’s highest
rating of ‘Outstanding’ and name it as a ‘Myce Editor’s Choice’.
I understand that the price for the NC01U ‘barebones’
version will be EUR 140 (exclusive of VAT) on launch and that the price for the
NC0100B version (as reviewed here) will be EUR 417.35 (exclusive of VAT).
