Mini PCs have found their place: Whether as a space-saving office solution for businesses or as a media player in the living room, the application possibilities of the form factor are virtually limitless. These handy cubes, which run patient software or the like, are also frequently found in, for example, doctor’s practices. Of course, you pay a certain price for the compact design: of course, none of the RX 6900XT or similarly powerful gimmicks fits in a housing with dimensions ranging from fifteen to fifteen centimeters. Nevertheless, the demand remains high and companies such as Beelink establish themselves here.
The Beelink U59 Pro Mini-PC is such a device and with a housing of 124 x 113 x 42 mm falls into a category where every centimeter counts. More than one CPU with integrated graphics chip, RAM and 2.5″ or m.2 SSD rarely fit in there. In fact, there is more information on this, so here is a list of all the components:
- Processor: Intel 11th Gen N5105 (4C/4T, 4M cache, 2.9GHz)
- Operating System: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
- RAM: 16GB 2400MHz DDR4 (2 x 8GB);
- Specifications: 512GB M.2 2280 SATA SSD
- Additional storage slot: 2.5″ 7mm SATA SSD/HDD
- Ethernet: 2 x 1000 Mbps LAN
- WLAN: IEEE 802.11ac, Wi-Fi 5; Ink Bluetooth: 4.0
- Price: about 349 euros
High standard than the whole thing. In short, you can’t complain and the processing quality is also perfect. However, the first impression leaves a slightly sweet taste on the tongue: there is really no high-quality unboxing feeling. Compressed in an ordinary cardboard box – in a transparent zippered bag – next to the device is an adapter to hang it on a monitor, the power pack (12V 2A), a simple “user manual” without much content and two HDMI cables from various lengths. Possibly small for use behind a monitor. So far simple.
come from disillusionment
After the first boot, the typical Windows 11 installation interface appears. However, the optical elements are much larger than usual (perhaps due to the lack of the correct graphics driver – a shame) and everything looks very slow. After the initial installation, there are many drivers to install; This is not an OEM out-of-the-box experience. When running Windows Update, it quickly becomes apparent that many small processes are taking too long and the update will run until the first reboot is required.
Took about two hours.
While one or the other interface driver was definitely missing at the time, it’s surprisingly easy to determine where the shoe pricks: apparently the CPU really couldn’t handle Windows 11’s load balancing and then it didn’t help. This suggests that both the main memory used and the M.2 SSD are quite unexpected OEM hardware from manufacturer “AZW”. However, once specific Windows updates and related drivers, especially the motherboard’s proprietary interface drivers, are installed, the Beelink U59 Pro will perform more efficiently and can finally get to work.
Early to the office? Only without multitasking.
Installing the Common Benchmark tool right away is a good test, as the download and copy processes shouldn’t cause any problems even with a pure Office device. Unfortunately, the U59 Pro went to its knees here unexpectedly, but regularly: the copying process from a USB 3.0 stick to an internal hard drive took longer than expected. However, the whole operating system slows down considerably and reacts with delays, for example when opening Explorer, minimizing windows and so on.
The disillusionment came faster than expected and yet the real values were needed. A short test with CrystalDiskMark (v8.0.4) showed that the internally installed 2280M.2 SSD still gave acceptable results in successive runs. But a difference of 30 MB/s between read and write tests is unusual. However, once random 4KiByte tests come into play, the read speed drops dramatically in comparison. Despite the combination of only one queue and only one thread, the U59 Pro delivers read speeds of just under 15 MB/s in benchmarks.
Similar discrepancies were found in the standard PCMark 10 benchmark: the mandatory score is more than enough, but once the spreadsheet is used, you see that the CPU is loaded more. The Celeron N5105 series has a productivity score of about 3600 points in the lower average in the PCMark database. So it corresponds purely to the first impression of performance in everyday procedures.
You can work with him; Something like that should only be fun to a limited extent. Incidentally, the low room temperature proves to be of fundamental importance: after a few minutes of processor load, the mini-PC gets very hot.
And streaming over the internet? So…
Since 4K video playback is advertised by both the manufacturer and Amazon, while multiple Office applications are open in parallel with no performance loss, I couldn’t recall any tests. When watching a YouTube video in 4K at 60 fps via Microsoft Edge, the effective processor load in Task Manager increased 30% faster. Netflix and Amazon Prime only registered a processor load of more than 40%, although the Netflix interface crashed twice during testing.
As a passionate video gamer, I couldn’t resist checking out Xbox Cloud Streaming and Steam Remote Play. The latter turned out to be very unstable, because apart from the 12 minute (!) Steam installation process, the integrated Intel graphics processor couldn’t keep up with the decompression and the process crashed repeatedly.
Things looked better for Microsoft’s cloud gaming service. But here again the image compression was never without artefacts and unfortunately all inputs showed a noticeable delay. Incidentally, despite the direct gigabit connection to the router. Since the U59 Pro doesn’t support Wi-Fi 6, I’ve avoided this route anyway. Still cool: thanks to the two 1GbE network ports, the device can theoretically sit in two separate networks. Due to the lack of a suitable environment, I was not able to test the feasibility on the Windows side without extra effort. At least port throughput didn’t fluctuate between 1,000 full-duplex and 100 half-duplex, as could be the case with the Realtek network cards on the popular motherboard.
conclusion
Designed for pure office service, the Beelink U59 Pro can certainly make quite the cut in many a doctor’s office or post office due to its reasonable price. Overall, the performance is exactly what you can expect from a Celeron-based mini PC, but not much. Because a lot of things are happening at the same time or the M.2 SSD is pushed to its limits at the same time, sometimes everything crashes. The U59 Pro is absolutely fine for checking email, typing documents, browsing and listening to music all at the same time. But unfortunately, you use YouTube Music and forget to switch from music videos to audio only in the background.
Gaming or similar gimmicks may not be included in the rating due to the mini PC’s intended use; This would not be fair to the integrated graphics processor.
About the author: Timo – By definition, an overnight father, husband and hobby game developer. Entered the metaverse before the meta was even a verse. Write here, there and everywhere.
This article contains affiliate links, so we mark it as an advertisement. Clicking on it will take you directly to the provider. If you decide to shop there, we will receive a small commission. Nothing changes the price for you. thanks for your cooperation!
0 Comments