Mini PCs & Android X86

[FH]

I am developing a kiosk based application using the Android X86 OS build. The application uses OpenGL ES 2.0 for rendering and requires a quite capable GPU. We are looking for a good mini PC to run this application on.

Questions we have:

1. What graphics cards manufacturers and models are supported by Android x86?
2. Does Android X86 take full use of the graphics card on 32/64 bit desktop pcs?
3. Any recommendations on mini PCs that would fit the bill here for use? NUC, Brix, ISTICK A300?

Thanks in advance

[Henri Koivuneva]

Intel iGPU's shouldn't require any fancy tweaks. They've worked out of the box for me. I haven't had much luck with others (some amd work).

So if you need to best possible Intel integrated GPU, the Skull Canyon NUC might have it: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10343/the-intel-skull-canyon-nuc6i7kyk-minipc-review

Kernel 4.4 that's used in the official Android-x86 6.0.1 builds seems to have support for the Skull Canyon NUC hardware (drivers etc) like I guess other NUCs.

Overall it seems to have the performance you're looking! I'd love to try one myself too..sounds like a beast.

[Henri Koivuneva]

I've also tested it with Haswell i3-4020Y & i5-4670K and Skylake i7-6700HQ and they all worked very well, especially with OpenGL ES 2.0 games and apps. The drivers are getting better with every release and there seems to be full hardware acceleration! So I assume NUCs should work for your purposes. Basically if Ubuntu 16.04 works, newest Android-x86 should work too in my experience.

AMD A10-7870K also works well.

Good luck!

[FH]

Henri:

Thanks a ton for the feeback. Helps me a lot. So you are suggesting I still with Intel CPU & Intel GPU in general? The Skull Canyon box looks nice but does have a price tag. Any reviews on the following: Intel BOXNUC6I3SYH NUC Barebone System? 

Thanks again!

[Jian Wu]

You may check this one "GB-BXi7-4770R"

Inside there is a mobile i7 cpu and embbeded GPU.

FH於 2016年10月4日星期二 UTC+8下午12時45分19秒寫道：

[FH]

Yes also a good option. I don't think I need top end mini PC. Anything with a half descent CPU & GPU will outperform an ARM device is my assumption. I figure $250-$350 should be a sufficient budget. Thoughts? 

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

The skull canyon nuc is as good as those minipc can get, with quad-core i7 cpu, slim body, up to 32GB DDR4 memory, and space for up to 2x512GB M2 SSD (no space for HDD). It also carries a fat price tag (full configuration would be close or around $2k).

I suggest stay away from other (e.g. olders) i7 models as they usually only have 2-core (I'd stick with i5 if 2 core is enough for your needs), and (from the reviews I've read) tend to be very noisy or overheat.

6th gen i3 & i5 NUCs are good (I've only tested linux though, not android), if you can get a model that works. I have a number of 5th gen and 6th gen i5 nuc, as well as the skull canyon nucs. Out of those, I've sent back three 6th gen i5 for replacement (probably something deffective in the manufacturing of that batch?), while two of them works fine. So whatever model you get, make sure you have good warranty on them.

$350 is hard fit. Probably a 6th-gen i5 nuc, with minimal memory and HDD/SSD?

-- 

Fajar

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[Henri Koivuneva]

Sounds great... This might be a bit off-topic BUT I've always wanted a NUC-sized mini PC for hackintosh+android+linux but I wouldn't have any real use for one yet. The Kaby Lake and Cannonlake chips sound great in that sense with the much increased graphics and computing performance plus 60fps 4K: they'd make a NUC a very viable option for a tiny slim work machine for me (web and app dev, Photoshop/illustrator/premiere pro/after effects, virtual machines). That would be one big dream come true!

I've been tinkering with a raspberry pi 3 but it's useless for android without correct drivers. Unfortunately. YouTube doesn't work either in raspbian & Ubuntu mate/xubuntu/lubuntu.

How does linux run on your NUCs? What distro and kernel version? Any tweaks, extra drivers
etc needed? As a media, web browsing & android PC the NUCs sound like they'd be perfect... Are things like WiFi, graphics, etc. on the 6th gen NUCs working properly and well?

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[Tails Lol]

if you are so short in price try to buy a Chinese box with Android already in or if you want absolutely 86 take a Chinese bay trail box you can install Android x86 in them and it work out of the box. and it will be less than 100$ in GearBest or geek buying.

[FH]

Thanks for the insight all. Price isn't tight necessarily but I wouldn't think that we need to break the bank to get where we want to be. I agree with Fajar's comments an reliability is a HUGE asset. 

The way I've thought about out problem is that our Android App runs well on a Moto X phone. So this is an ARM based system with minimal GPU power. Our goal here is to bring this same app to a mini-pc that we can have run standalone and hooked up to a 42" 3M multi-touch monitor. So, I wouldn't think that we have to go to the next generation of gaming pc's to have this thing run ok.

I am testing this unit http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=1157&item_id=091556 as I am able to get a demo box. I will let you all know how it runs. This will mark starting at the bottom and working up. If this doesn't cut it I will move up a notch.

 

On Tuesday, October 4, 2016 at 12:45:19 AM UTC-4, FH wrote: