Intel Beelink BT3 Review

Today we will review the new TV-Box Beelink BT3 Intel , one of the most popular models of specialist manufacturer Beelink TV-Box. It is a complete team of small size (like the NUC Intel) that stands out for being equipped with an Intel Cherry Trail processor and operating system Windows 10 , so that in addition to providing the usual multimedia capabilities in a TV-Box we can do absolutely anything that can be done with Microsoft’s operating system.

For most users have a TV-Box with Android operating system is enough to enjoy multimedia content on your TV, but there is always more advanced users who need a little more, and for these a mini PC (for the Beelink Intel BT3 a mini PC is a TV-Box) with Windows 10 operating system is just what they need, because if one thing is clear is that Windows provides a versatility of Android is not able to give today.

In analyzing today we are going to show in detail this Beelink Intel BT3, and of course we are going to tell how well it works for the work that has been designed (multimedia) and the usual synthetic benchmarks so much so that you can make you a general idea of ​​what performance provides us with the equipment.

Beelink has equipped its Intel BT3 with an Intel Cherry Trail Atom x5 Z8300 processor with four cores and four threads of process operating at a maximum speed of 1.84 Ghz consuming only 2 watts, and that the SoC own Cherry Trail includes graphics Intel HD. To this the manufacturer adds up to 2 GB of RAM memory DDR3L, the maximum supported by this processor.

As for the internal storage appears that the manufacturer has made a mess, he says that the team has two drives, the C drive with 12.8 / 40 GB free drive D, with 0 of 40 free GB. Obviously as we shall see shortly this data is wrong and refer to occupied space, not free.

Unlike other mini PCs we have discussed, it is noteworthy that the Beelink Intel BT3 stands out in paragraph connectivity, as well as incorporating standard with an HDMI 2.0 connector capable of reproducing content to 4K resolution, has a USB 3.0 port connect external drives and have the best transfer rate. Apart from this, it has two USB 2.0 for connecting peripherals, Bluetooth 4.0 for pairing devices, WiFi ports dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz) 802.11 a / b / g / n and forced RJ-45 Gigabit for better stability connection.

On one side we find the SD card reader and two USB 2.0 more, plus two small horizontal drilling serving air inlet. The other two sides are completely empty so we passed them. It is at the back where almost all connectivity is. From left to right are: power button, power connector, USB 3.0, HDMI 2.0, RJ-45 Gigabit and headphone minijack. I must say that the Intel Beelink BT3 is really small and lightweight. In fact it is quite smaller than the Shuttle XPC Nano we analyze a few months ago.

For some reason, Chinese manufacturers that sell complete systems of small size with Windows 10 preinstalled install the 32-bit version when the system is 64 bits. The team only has 2 GB of RAM, okay, but this rather narrows the team’s chances because there are many applications that only work on 64-bit systems.

As for the records, actually it is a single unit, in this case eMMC. Nor do I see sense in this case, the factory make two partitions instead of incorporating a single unit of 60 GB. This is the actual occupied and free space that presents the team.

And since we’re on the hard drive, it is the performance that shows us CrystalDisk AIDA64 and Mark.

As you can see, actually gives us the usual performance that gives the eMMC memory, a bit more performance than a mechanical hard drive but with all the benefits of SSDs (not heated, does not consume anything, etc.).

Performance RAM and processor cache we have measured the usefulness of AIDA64. The usual result is a system with DDR3 memory in single-channel (one module).

And then, thanks to Cinebench you can see the raw performance that delivers processor and integrated graphics. It is usual in this Intel Atom x5-Z8300 quad-core processor.

Although the performance seems quite poor, I must say that plenty can playback content with full HD resolution (using VLC) and even Ultra HD resolution (also with VLC). In this second case, yes, we tested with a film that took a whopping 67 GB via LAN (Gigabit), and I must say that the system took almost a minute to frisk the film and start playing. Of course, once it started there were no stoppages, stuttering or anything like that, everything worked without a hitch.

Obviously, being a system with Windows 10, we can do much more than display multimedia content, so you install Office and Chrome and started using the computer as if it were a normal desktop computer. I must say that while processing applications and documents note a bit heavy, the Intel Beelink BT3 fulfills its function and could be used successfully for light use Office without too many mishaps.

Navigation is quick thanks to its Gigabit connectivity and dual-band WiFi, and even playing content through platforms like Youtube or Twitch works swimmingly.

PROS:
Intel architecture.
pretty decent performance, including playback of content to 4K resolution.
Excellent connectivity (USB 3.0, USB 2.0, card reader, Gigabit LAN, dual-band WiFi …).
Little size.
Low consumption and totally silent.
Windows 10 compatible with dual boot.
Price (about 135 euros ).

CONS:
32-bit operating system.
The front light hurts a little.