Remember ASRock’s Beebox? The original Mini PC was originally reviewed here on TechPowerUp to a glowing score and wholehearted recommendation, and now, the company has announced an upgrade to its innards that is sure to give a new lease of life to the device’s appeal. The upgraded systems are powered by either Intel’s Core i5-7100U (2C/4T, 2.5 GHz base and 3.1 GHz Boost clocks) or i3-7200U (2C/4T, 2.4 GHz base clock) CPUs, featuring the Kaby Lake micro-architecture, but are, apart from that, identical to their predecessors. The system can also be equipped with up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 memory (two SO-DIMM slots), an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD and a 2.5″ SSD/HDD depending on your particular demands. Meanwhile, Intel’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi + BT 4.0 wireless module is pre-installed.
Just like its predecessor, the Asrock Beebox-S comes in a small black enclosure (110×118.5×46 mm, 0.6 L). Since the PC is based on Intel’s Kaby Lake processor, it has rather advanced video playback capabilities, which make it a good candidate for an HTPC (especially if you’re counting on watching Netflix in 4K, considering its rather… stringent… hardware requirements. This, I believe, is the strongest argument towards getting the new model over the still capable and cheaper, yet older, models.
If you do make the jump to the Beebox-S, it packs the required HDMI 2.0 with support for 4Kp60 with 10-bit HDR output, one of the key features of the new Beebox systems. there’s also an IR receiver compatible with a bundled remote controller, further emphasizing a possible HTPC positioning of the Beebox-S. Other connections include 1x HDMI 1.4 as well as 1x DisplayPort 1.2. The Beebox-S also has 1x USB 3.0 Type-A and 1x USB 3.0 Type-C headers, as well as a 3.5 mm TRRS connector for headsets on the front panel. The back panel features two more USB 3.0 ports and one GbE connector.
The Beebox-S 7100U and Beebox-S 7200U SFF PCs started selling this week for $291 and $349, respectively – a pretty steep price difference between both models for what amounts to a 600 MHz difference in the best-case scenario. For now, the Beebox-S is only available in black, though more colors may be on their way in the future, considering the previous Beebox made do with black, white, silver and golden finishes.
