First impressions with the Latte Panda Enhanced
aodxxl 2016-05-16 02:46:53 6222 Views4 Replies So my latte arrived with dhl a few days ago and i was verry excited to play with it . Here are a few of my first impressions with it.
Pro's
- The packaging it came in was verry nice
- The latte is well built , the connectors are not fragile as with other chinese manufactured electronics
- The case ( in my case acrylic) was a verry interesting concept
- First boot was great , Waited 5 secs for the blue light to stop blinking and pressed power afterwards. It all started in first go.( i did have a 5v 2A tablet charger arround the office)
- It boots up faster than desktop with a mechanical HDD
- Playing 1080p videos from onboard memory works well and there are no visible dropped frames.
- The wow factor is there . Everyone i showed it to was " wow it's so tiny , and is it really a full windows 10 pc?" Though they probably havent seen the intel computer stick
-After installing all the programs and antivirus solution i get a constant 1.8GB os used memory wich is great. ( 64 bit OS uses up more memory than 32 bit) In comparison my desktop computer used 3.1 GB memory with the same OS and same programs but it has 16 gigs.
Con's
- First thing i did was start assembling the case but as i soon discovered , acrylic is verry fragile.I ended up breaking 5 of its legs .
- The instructions are the worst . WIth just a picture of it dissasembled and some arrows pointing on to where it should go.I ended up dissasembling it 5 times before i managed to put it correctly. But as i mentioned before i ended up breaking allot of pieces.
- Activation ... well that was a pain in the butt as it gave me an error telling me the key is already used on another computer. I had to call microsoft and activate by phone ( no biggie since i do this every day at work but annoying for people who dont)
- Pluging in the antenna ...what a hassle ) ; The gap is to small to put your finger in there , so i had to use a small screwdriver to position and push it. Even then it takes a considerable amount of force to push it in.
- Wi-fi works but is one of the worse ive seen. I have the enhanced version of the latte and it comes with 5ghz band ( not AC !! as advertised) . I havent tested it since i need a 5ghz dualband router but soon. The wifi is slow , capping it at arround 23mbps ( router is 450mbps and my connection is 1000mbps digi fiberlink) It lags when playing back video from the network and my router is at max 5m distance with direct sight.
- Playing back youtube videos is choppy and drops frames. 720p videos youtube videos work great ,but 1080p videos drop frames and 1080p60FPS plays at 2fps.
- Procesor thermal throttles like a maniac . It idle's at 68 degrees celsius and sits at 89 degrees when under load but then the experience of using windows 10 becomes a chore. You wait 15 secs to open a web browser ( opera or chrome) and it becomes apparent that this is a phone procesor and not a desktop one.
The thermals are a big issues here because i have tested the asus transformer T100ha with the X5-8500 and 2 gigs of rams and it is buttery smooth compared to the latte. I will find a solution to cool it later on and post my results here.
- Audio defaults to HDMI even if you plug in speakers in the headphone jack . You have to manually select the output everytime . ( probably windows 10 "feature")
- WHY NO GIGABIT ETHERNET !!! this i couldnt understand , as many low cost computers out there have it and it doesnt cost extra to implement. Only the chip needs to be changed because all the phisical connectors are there. But the Wired speed at least is better than the wireless topping out at 87mbps.
That's about it with my first impressions of it, i havent started testing the arduino yet since i never played with one before but as soon as i discover anything else interesting i'l post it here.
Btw if you guys have any solutions for the con's i posted feel free to post it here.
Pro's
- The packaging it came in was verry nice
- The latte is well built , the connectors are not fragile as with other chinese manufactured electronics
- The case ( in my case acrylic) was a verry interesting concept
- First boot was great , Waited 5 secs for the blue light to stop blinking and pressed power afterwards. It all started in first go.( i did have a 5v 2A tablet charger arround the office)
- It boots up faster than desktop with a mechanical HDD
- Playing 1080p videos from onboard memory works well and there are no visible dropped frames.
- The wow factor is there . Everyone i showed it to was " wow it's so tiny , and is it really a full windows 10 pc?" Though they probably havent seen the intel computer stick
-After installing all the programs and antivirus solution i get a constant 1.8GB os used memory wich is great. ( 64 bit OS uses up more memory than 32 bit) In comparison my desktop computer used 3.1 GB memory with the same OS and same programs but it has 16 gigs.
Con's
- First thing i did was start assembling the case but as i soon discovered , acrylic is verry fragile.I ended up breaking 5 of its legs .
- The instructions are the worst . WIth just a picture of it dissasembled and some arrows pointing on to where it should go.I ended up dissasembling it 5 times before i managed to put it correctly. But as i mentioned before i ended up breaking allot of pieces.
- Activation ... well that was a pain in the butt as it gave me an error telling me the key is already used on another computer. I had to call microsoft and activate by phone ( no biggie since i do this every day at work but annoying for people who dont)
- Pluging in the antenna ...what a hassle ) ; The gap is to small to put your finger in there , so i had to use a small screwdriver to position and push it. Even then it takes a considerable amount of force to push it in.
- Wi-fi works but is one of the worse ive seen. I have the enhanced version of the latte and it comes with 5ghz band ( not AC !! as advertised) . I havent tested it since i need a 5ghz dualband router but soon. The wifi is slow , capping it at arround 23mbps ( router is 450mbps and my connection is 1000mbps digi fiberlink) It lags when playing back video from the network and my router is at max 5m distance with direct sight.
- Playing back youtube videos is choppy and drops frames. 720p videos youtube videos work great ,but 1080p videos drop frames and 1080p60FPS plays at 2fps.
- Procesor thermal throttles like a maniac . It idle's at 68 degrees celsius and sits at 89 degrees when under load but then the experience of using windows 10 becomes a chore. You wait 15 secs to open a web browser ( opera or chrome) and it becomes apparent that this is a phone procesor and not a desktop one.
The thermals are a big issues here because i have tested the asus transformer T100ha with the X5-8500 and 2 gigs of rams and it is buttery smooth compared to the latte. I will find a solution to cool it later on and post my results here.
- Audio defaults to HDMI even if you plug in speakers in the headphone jack . You have to manually select the output everytime . ( probably windows 10 "feature")
- WHY NO GIGABIT ETHERNET !!! this i couldnt understand , as many low cost computers out there have it and it doesnt cost extra to implement. Only the chip needs to be changed because all the phisical connectors are there. But the Wired speed at least is better than the wireless topping out at 87mbps.
That's about it with my first impressions of it, i havent started testing the arduino yet since i never played with one before but as soon as i discover anything else interesting i'l post it here.
Btw if you guys have any solutions for the con's i posted feel free to post it here.