Where to buy? Gearbest
I was already convinced that mini PCs were all the same. Usually a square box, more or less discreet just by the colors. But then I received one that changed this idea: the Acute Angle AA B4, a computer that has a triangular shape, and is beautiful enough to be used as a decoration piece in the office.
I still haven’t figured out if its body is really made of wood. It looks like a synthetic material, but it’s pretty anyway. I must say this PC is a bit bigger than the average, and also, it has 2 or 3 blue LEDs that are weak, and don’t contribute to overall beauty here.
Anyway, it’s a stylish hardware, and it comes with what I call complete spec sheet. Celeron processor, 8 gigs of RAM and two types of storage: 64 gigs eMMC and 128 gigs of faster SSD, which can even be exchanged up to a 960GB piece. In addition, the selection of ports is quite satisfactory, and it already comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built-in. To wrap up the package, it includes a full version of Windows 10 Home.
But I make it clear that you can’t expect too much from this machine in terms of raw performance, mainly if you’re used to Core i3s or i5s with SSD storage. That’s because the processor is pretty basic, and this was reflected in benchmark tests carried out here. I even found that this Celeron performed slightly below similar models that I have already used in other mini PCs. In practice, this highlights that the Acute Angle is meant for casual use, such as text production, web browsing, media center or maybe running cashier software in commercial establishments.
In my personal use, I noticed that with 5-7 tabs opened in the web browser, this PC already shows some delay to load heavy pages, for example. And of course, I performed a little gaming test. In Horizon Chase Turbo, I had to reduce the resulution to 720p with no graphical effects, and so the game was totally playable, although not yet in its best performance. Something similar happened in Starcraft Remastered, the HD version, which was released not long ago. Classic videogame emulators went very well, and it also ran 4k videos on YouTube.
One peculiar thing: Windows comes installed in eMMC memory, not in the SSD. That is, it comes in the slower storage, and this certainly holds system performance. So yes, I recommend formatting the machine and putting the system in the fastest storage, because this will undoubtedly yield an additional speed in web browsing and such.
This PC has an internal fan, but happily the operation is super quiet. Temperature management of the processor isn’t the best, but that doesn’t matter for a system aimed at light tasks.
My final impression is positive: design is beautiful, it really looks nice on the table, and it’s complete in terms of specs. Performance really doesn’t seem to deliver the maximum, but it’s enough for the kind of use given to that category of product, which is basic. It usually costs something near the 200 USD range, so the value is appropriate. In my oipinion, it’s a computer to take into consideration for those who want something different of standard Windows mini PCs.
PROS:
– Beautiful and silent
– Good selection of ports
– Not too expensive
CONS:
– Performance is really for basic use only