We’ve assumed earlier with the aim of the days of hulking desktop towers are pretty much completed. Nearly everyone colonize choice in no way need interim in place of add-on cards, vast power food and multiple relentless drives. With even reasonable specifications, cooling does not require vast fans anymore. Optical drives are finished, wireless connectivity is lovely as much as necessary in place of nearly everyone purposes, and everything to boot can survive plugged featuring in via USB or else finished online. If you are a gamer or else creative certified with detail needs, you can survive jovial with a PC like this, which is solitary a barely better than the usual restaurant takeaway box.
Asus is getting serious on the subject of its own line of mini desktop PCs. Boxes this size used to turn up with untimely Intel Atom processors which were solitary lovely as much as necessary in place of major productivity. They were considered weak and sub-par compared to full-sized desktops. Folks days are spent – featuring in statement with laptops displacing desktops all over, it ought to survive rebuff disturb with the aim of companies are taking the same parts designed in place of slight spaces and next up with boxes exclusive of their own screens and keyboards with the aim of are even lesser and lighter.
Look and feel
The VivoMini UN62 is understated yet lovely looking. By the side of 131mm seek permission and 42mm tall, it’s alike featuring in size to Zotac’s Zbox mini-PCs. It’s lesser (but taller) than even the current-generation Mac Mini. Featuring in statement, it’s solitary in the past few minutes a barely better than a standard interior DVD-RW drive and looks further like a router or else peripheral relentless drive than a fully functional PC. By the side of 1kg, you can pretty much have it around anywhere.
The VivoMini made of dark plastic and choice look by the side of land of your birth on some desk or else even subsequently to your living space television. It’s a little bowl-shaped; tapering towards the floor, with rubber legs with the aim of allow it to take air featuring in exclusive of obstruction. Near are besides mounting points in place of the integrated VESA bracket on the floor, so you can hang the VivoMini inedible the back of an LCD television.
The top has a silver Asus logo remedy featuring in the centre of a pattern of fine concentric rings, very alike to come again? We’ve seen on the company’s ZenFone range. It looks important as soon as it catches the light by the side of an face. There’s a power button remedy featuring in the interior of the front panel, with an integrated ashen power LED with the aim of thankfully isn’t distractingly brilliant. There’s besides a moment indicator a little to its gone, in place of particular goal.
The remedy interface is absolute but near are ports all around the other sides. On the rear panel, there’s a DC power inlet, full-sized HDMI and DisplayPort capture on tape outputs, two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and a 3.5mm headset socket. Searing air is exhausted passй through a vent running over all the ports. Near are two further USB 3.0 ports on the gone featuring in addition to an SD tag slot and a Kensington security lock slot.
The recent put on show outputs allow you to run three screens in chorus (using a DisplayPort daisy-chain). The two USB ports on the gone allow fast charging. Featuring in brisk, there’s further than as much as necessary in place of nearly everyone connectivity needs. We’d propose departure with wireless peripherals because far because likely to keep things looking lovely.
Specifications and software
The VivoMini UN62 is somewhat configurable and near are amply of things you can customise. Our have another look at piece came with a low-voltage Intel interior i3-4030U mainframe, which is a fourth-generation Haswell part with two cores running by the side of 1.9GHz and integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics. It besides had 4GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, a 128GB SSD, and an 802.11ac Wi-Fi module with Bluetooth 4.0.
You can opt to order yours with a interior i5-4210U as a substitute, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of luggage compartment. There’s besides a VivoMini UN42 classic based around a Celeron 2957U which is probably further apt in place of corporate desktops or else embedded situations such because running digital signage or else kiosks. Barebones versions of both models, which don’t include the RAM, SSD or else OS, are besides to be had.
The integrated 65W power supply is pretty bulky even by laptop values, and is designed to plug right away into a border socket. Other than with the aim of and a VESA mounting plate, near isn’t much featuring in the box. Asus besides offers a wired or else wireless the ivories and mouse, though our have another look at piece did not turn up with some.
The VivoMini UN62 comes with Windows 8.1 and a surplus of preloaded utilities, many of which are not all with the aim of informative. There’s a 60-day Norton Internet Security trial, the standard Microsoft company trial, Adobe bookworm, WinZip and Intel slight corporation lead. Asus besides preloads its own AI Suite, AI Security, Homecloud head waiter, Media ribbon, Wi-Fi get to, EZ keep informed, Remote Management Tool, WebStorage, Secure Delete, and artifact Registration Tool.
Particular of these bamboozle up popups asking you to reach a decision to provisions and conditions. Nearly everyone of the Asus Web-related tools require an ID so you can sign featuring in and run media. Asus gives customers 100GB of online luggage compartment interim in place of a time and there’s besides 100GB of Microsoft OneDrive interim in place of a time.
Performance
The components inside the Asus VivoMini UN62 were all to a large extent intended in place of tinny and light notebooks, and give been rearranged to fit into a slight seek permission box. With with the aim of featuring in mind, we were still quite jovial with how the in one piece package came jointly. Single of the highest advantages of a low-voltage CPU is its capability to run exclusive of generating leg, which featuring in trip wealth a loud fan is not mandatory. Near without doubt still is a fan, but we in no way heard it featuring in exploit. The VivoMini is almost entirely silent, which is truthfully remarkable.
Day-to-day running didn’t bamboozle up some problems. We hooked our test piece up to our own television, the ivories and mouse. It ran quite happily by the side of 1440p, though in place of the purposes of taxing, we took the declaration down to a further standard 1080p.
Yardstick scores were pretty lovely featuring in nearly everyone gear; by the side of par with or else better than similarly configured notebooks. PCMark gave us scores of 2488, 2539 and 3596 featuring in the land of your birth, Creative, and run runs correspondingly. 3DMark Fire down tools gave us 497 overall which is decent allowing for the integrated Intel HD graphics. CineBench R15’s CPU test came featuring in by the side of 181 points, while POVRay finished tracing its interior yardstick featuring in 11 minutes, 27 seconds.
Single area featuring in which the VivoMini UN62 stood passй was SSD performance. The SATA 600 module managed 528.84 MBps sequential reads and 308.9MBps sequential writes featuring in SiSoft SANDRA’s heading arrangement Bandwidth module, which are both brilliant scores compared to alike products with mini SSDs. The solitary delinquent is the low power – solitary on the subject of 102GB is to be had to the user, and that’s not as well as interim taken up by Windows and the all the preloaded software.
The VivoMini UN62 was gifted of management all the media archive we threw by the side of it. We may well feel the searing air next passй of the vents by the side of the rear as soon as it was under severe masses, but it still didn’t acquire loud. Single queer but minor idea was with the aim of the power LED featuring in front on track flashing hastily as soon as the device went to nap, which we found very distracting. This disturbed us further than some sound even as soon as it was in the past few minutes sitting on our company desks, so it would undoubtedly happen to a delinquent featuring in a dark bedroom by the side of land of your birth.
The statement with the aim of a barebones version is on hand indicates with the aim of by the side of smallest amount particular parts are modular and with the aim of near is probable in place of upgrades and replacements down the line. It ought to besides survive at ease in place of users to release the VivoMini’s carcass themselves featuring in order to install parts. Definite as much as necessary, we found four trouble-free screws beneath pop-out rubber stoppers on the floor, and opening the carcass was rebuff delinquent. We found two standard SO-DIMM RAM slots, an mSATA slot occupied by the SSD, and a mini-PCIe slot occupied by the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module. All of these can survive swapped passй by any person with a screwdriver and major awareness of PC components.
Verdict
Asus has finished a pretty lovely task with the VivoMini UN62. We really like its size and overall look, which put together it well suited in place of some state of affairs. The hardware is besides pretty up-to-date and you can expect to acquire pretty much everything finished with the aim of you would expect to work out on a recent laptop – with the aim of is to say company productivity, media playback, surfing the jungle, and in performance light games. With a wireless the ivories and mouse, this may well survive a very neat land of your birth theatre PC.
We particularly like the statement with the aim of Asus offers so many customisation options.The work of an SSD to a certain extent than rotating drive does keep a tight rein on interim, but performance is better by far and sound and power consumption are low-price because well.
The test piece we standard with the interior i3 mainframe, 4GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD and Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac module is priced by the side of Rs. 39,500. The same piece barebones would start by the side of Rs. 26,500 but the barebones Celeron-based UN42 classic starts by the side of Rs. 13,500.
Compared to Zotac’s Zbox products, such because the Zbox Sphere which we reviewed a barely while before, the Asus VivoMini UN62 is a crumb further expensive, with a lower-spec mainframe but SSD to a certain extent than rotating drive. The barebones versions of both are priced by the side of around the same level, which wealth the Zbox Sphere still comes with a better mainframe by the side of with the aim of assess. Of stream you may well besides acquire a pretty thickset standard desktop tower in place of this amount of money. You’ll give to decide if the looks, flexibility and connectivity are worth it.