Gigabyte calls the Brix an “Ultra Compact PC Kit” and a “Barebones Mini-PC”. In our opinion this is not doing these little powerhouses justice. Sure they are absolutely tiny, sure they are also arguably a PC kit in that they do require you to purchase RAM and a 2.5″ storage drive. That however is a long, long way from the images ‘PC Kit’ instills in most people. Heck, when we were young a PC Kit meant you got a PCB, a bunch of chips, and maybe a case to stick it all in…after you had spent a week putting it together – and god help you if you were not handy with a soldering iron as the kit would not!
In our opinion a more apt description of these devices is that they are ultra-portable PCs that are also affordable and customizable. This is not as catchy a phrase, but it really is amazing how much performance Intel’s NUC form-factor allows for, and Gigabyte has taken full advantage of it by making it slightly bigger than most NUC’s. Unless you need more internal storage than what a single 2.5″ storage device can offer, or need a dedicated video card these little devices give up almost nothing over that of the typical m-ITX ‘shoebox’ build.
As we saw in testing, everything from to surfing the Internet, to word-processing, to even PhotoShop showed differences that were not large enough to matter to most – and these differences come down to the RAM, and SSD you choose. In fact we used the Gigabyte Brix to not only write up, edit, and complete all photo processing, but also all excel spreadsheet charts using this little powerhouse. That is rather impressive when you think about it. Though what really impressed us was its ability to be used as a full-fledged XBMC (aka ‘KODI’) Home Theatre PC.
This is where these devices shine as we could we use Lanczos 3 optimized algorithm for up-converting. More importantly, thanks to its four USB 3.0 ports and integrated WiFi adapter, all we had to do was plug in an IR receiver, point it to our NAS’s IP address, and using our XMBC compatible remote control sit back & enjoy true HD entertainment the way it was meant to be enjoyed. Obviously we would have preferred an i5 so as to be able to enable even better software up but for most consumers this amount of power at this price makes for one potent argument in its favor…and if you really need even better up-conversion stepping up to the i5 or i7 version is imminently doable. All this in a package not that much different in size from a Patriot Box Office, or Asus 0!Play, both of which lack the power of this little power house.
In the end the Gigabyte Brix BXi3-5010 may not be right for everyone, but for consumers interested in a full-fledged system that brings new meaning to the phrase “portable PC” that also won’t break the bank, the GB Brix series demands to be on your short list. Color us impressed.
