(I'm editing my review because I thought the voltage reading I was getting on the CPU seemed high but I have confirmed with an Intel rep that it is within the normal range for the CPU in this machine.)
I payed $190 CDN for this computer in December of 2022. Performance is quite good considering it has a 15W TDP processor in it. I have upgraded the RAM to 16GB from the original 8GB and I have added a 500GB 2.5" SSD in addition to the original 128GB SSD.
Pros: Good performance for the price and power draw. Can run many low end or older games quite decently. I had decent experiences running overwatch 2, Fallout New Vegas, Half LIfe 2, Portal 2, Half Life, Half Life Infinite, Golf with Friends, and other older games at 720P with low or medium settings. Overwatch 2 was a bit stuttery on occasion but doubling the RAM to 16GB seems to have smoothed it out. The machine also has many great features, such as: Socketed RAM that can be swapped out. An M2 SATA SSD (stock config) that can be swapped out and upgraded. It also has an available pre-wired 2.5" drive bay so you can easily install a 2.5" SSD. The bottom of the computer is easily removed with four small screws and all the upgradable components are easily accessible immediately upon opening the computer. Also, the BIOS is surprisingly robust and open ended given that this is an OEM machine. You can TDP up the CPU if you're brave and have the computer in a cold room. You can change the amount of RAM to allocate to the integrated graphics, and you can tweak memory timings. Is the bios a pretty looking graphical interface? No, but it is a UEFI bios with a lot of options to play with. Also, the machine did not come with any bloatware that I was aware of. Just Windows and drivers. The windows 11 pro installation was activated. No missing drivers in device manager.
Cons: The machine gets to 70-80C under load in a 22C room which is what my home is usually heated to. By under load I mean running 2 high res videos on two seperate screens (which it does without any noticeable frame drops), or running a game, stuff like that. Obviously if you do a 30 minute cinebench marathon it's going to probably get warmer. Are these temperatures a problem? Absolutely not. However if you were to be in a very hot part of the world without air conditioning, and you were to run this computer in say a 35 celsius environment, I'd be watching the temperatures of the computer's processor more carefully. Having said that, the same is true of any machine with a small heatsink in hot environments, such as laptop computers or SFF computers, so that's not necessarily a con against this specific computer. The only real genuine con I've found with this machine is that the RAM is single channel (only one slot). Having said that, the only situation where that will matter for a machine in this class is the integrated graphics. Could I get a few more FPS in Fallout with dual channel RAM? Possibly. Is it a deal breaker? No. Also this computer runs Chrome OS Flex and Fyde OS (a fork of Chrome OS) flawlessly with zero issues. Also when I removed the included 8GB 2400Mhz RAM and replaced it with 16GBX1 2666Mhz RAM as well as adding a 500GB SATA SSD the machine booted up within about 10 seconds and posted immediately. It also correctly set the RAM speed to 2666Mhz. The SSD was immediately available in disk management as well as the BIOS.
Noticeable quirks based on my findings: possibly innaccurate vCore readings, definitely innacurate RAM speed readings (2666 RAM reads at 667 instead of 1333. It's definitely running at 2666 though). Also I was somewhat disappointed with the sound quality from the built in 3.5mm output and upgraded to a cheap and cheerful Soundblaster Play 3 external DAC dongle which sounds somewhat better while also offering more sound profile tweaks. Works well with this device.
Good value for money. Good cheap PC for a media center, or retro gaming, or maybe for your grandparents who want to surf the web and watch youtube videos. Also pretty decent for MS office which I have used on it. Competent basic every day PC at a low price.
| Display Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
|---|---|
| Max screen resolution | 3840 x 2160@60Hz |
| Processor | 2.9 GHz celeron |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 500 GB SSD |
| Graphics coprocessor | Intel UHD Graphics 600 |
| Chipset brand | Intel |
| Card description | Integrated |
| Wireless Standard | 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency |
| Brand | Beelink |
| Series | Beelink |
| Item model number | mini pc sei8 |
| Hardware Platform | PC, Linux |
| Operating System | OS |
| Product Dimensions | 12.4 x 11.3 x 4.06 cm; 771 g |
| Item dimensions L x W x H | 12.4 x 11.3 x 4.1 Centimetres |
| Colour | Black |
| Processor Brand | Intel |
| Number of Processors | 4 |
| Memory Type | DDR4 SDRAM |
| Flash memory size | 16 GB |
| Hard Disk Interface | Serial ATA |
| Hard drive rotational speed | 1800.00 |
| Power Source | Input: 100-120V AC, 50/60Hz |
