Manufacturer of motherboards and systems in the collection of ECS continues to actively develop a family of mini-computers LIVA, most of which are characterized by miniature dimensions and fanless performance. This time, the Taiwanese company submitted to the public a barebone-system LIVA Z2. Mini-PC is assembled in a laconic looking case with sides 132 (D) × 118 (W) × 56.4 (V) mm, and its base is the Intel Gemini Lake platform.
As the central processor ECS LIVA Z2 uses SoC with a heat release of up to 6 watts – the quad-core Pentium Silver N5000 and Celeron N4100, and the dual-core Celeron N4000. Built-in graphics Intel UHD 605/600 supports resolutions up to 4096 × 2304 pixels. To get a full-fledged PC, the LIVA Z2 configuration needs to be supplemented with one or two RAM modules DDR4-2400 SO-DIMM (maximum 8 GB), and, preferably, a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD-drive in addition to the chip on the board eMMC for 32 or 64 GB (depending on the model) for the system partition. By the way, barebone does without a pre-installed operating system, but its hardware supports Windows 10, which is noted in the specification.
Network capabilities LIVA Z2 are represented by a wireless adapter Wi-Fi (802.11ac) / Bluetooth 4.2 and a Gigabit Ethernet controller that works in conjunction with an external RJ-45 connector. The set of available interfaces is quite diverse – among them there are USB 3.0 Type-A (three ports), USB 3.0 Type-C, HDMI 2.0 and HDMI 1.4. In a more modest modification of the LIVA Z2V, instead of the HDMI 2.0 connector, an analog D-Sub (VGA) is used. It is not yet known whether this version of the barebone system will be delivered without geographical restrictions.
A curious detail of LIVA Z2 / Z2V is the presence of an internal pin connector GPIO, which is often found in single-board computers for developers. It allows you to connect a wide range of devices – from a variety of sensors and LCD displays to entire computer systems. The barebone itself can be attached to the back of the monitor if necessary with the help of a complete VESA device (75 × 75, 100 × 100 mm). The novelty also comes with an external 19-volt power adapter, designed for a load of 3.42 A / 65 watts.