ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 review

Whether you are a home or office user or a student, the ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 has the power to meet all your needs. It is small But powerful. It has 4K HD for visually home entertainment, HTPC – perfect for home office, light games,digital Security and surveillance, digital signage, media center,conference room etc. Discover details in our ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 review.

ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 specs

I/O Specifications: Designed with 2 x USB 2.0 ports,2 x USB 3.0 ports ,1 x Gigabit Ethernet port,1 x Micro SD Card port,2 x HDMI port support Dual Display

Processor
CPU: Intel Celeron J3455
Processor Base Frequency:1.5 GHz
Burst Frequency: 2.3 GHz
Cache: 4 MB
# of Cores: 4

Storage
Memory Size: 4GB
Memory Types: DDR3L
Hard Disk: 32GB
Expansion options: Install 2.5-Inch HDD/SSD,or fit Msata SSD

Processor Graphics
GPU: Intel HD Graphics
Graphics Base Frequency: 250 MHz
Graphics Burst Frequency: 750 MHz

I/O Specifications
USB: 3x USB 2.0,2x USB 3.0
Video Interface: 2x HDMI
Audio Port: Headphone/Mic Combo Interface
1X Ethernet Port
1x Micro SD Card Slot
1x DC Power Port

Wireless Technology
Wi-Fi: 2.4G/5G Built-in Wi-Fi
Bluetooth: BT 4.0

Package List
1x Mini PC
1x Power Cord
1x HDMI cable
1x VESA Mount
1x English Instruction

Main features – ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455

Intel Celeron Processor: Quad-Core Intel Celeron J3455 Processor.It’s base operating frequency 1.5 GHz/s rising to a 2.3 GHz in burst mode.

Storage Expansion Options: 1.Install 2.5-Inch HDD/SSD to the internal expansion bay. 2.Fit mSATA SSD to the motherboard. After done,clone the OS to a SSD and get better performance from this mini pc.

Small But Powerful: 4K Ultra HD for visually home entertainment, HTPC, perfect for home office, light games,digital Security and surveillance, digital signage, media center,conference room etc

Windows 10 OS: Pre-installed with Windows 10 Home Edition(64bit) OS in the 32GB eMMC drive.

Difference between ACEPC AK1 and AK2

J3455 and J4105 hot CPUs for Mini PCs these days, and many small PCs and laptops use them as CPUs. Both ACEPC AK2 and GK2 Mini PCs use them as well. What’s the difference?

ACEPC AK2 and GK2 have a same case.
ACEPC AK2, J3455, 4+32GB
ACEPC GK2, J4105, 4+64GB

The Intel J3455 has more processing cores than the Celeron J4005 processor. Large number of cores helps this CPU to tackle multiple simultaneous processes or threads. However, the operating frequency of the Celeron J4005 processor is higher than the frequency of the J3455.

Similar CPUs use the same socket and architecture as Celeron J3455 and Intel J4105, but their performance and other characteristics are a bit different.

As J4105 is newer than J3455 in release time and it has higher working frequency, we can say  J4105 is better than J3455 in performance.

ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 comparison

ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 review

Design

ACEPC AK2 Mini desktop computer is powered by Intel Apollo Lake Celeron J3455 Up to 2.3 GHz. And loaded with 4GB DDR3L RAM and 32GB eMMC as storage. Furthermore, it supports dual band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5.0GHz), Dual Output(HDMI/Type-C), Bluetooth 4.0,Gigabit Ethernet. And comes with licensed Windows 10 (64-bit).There are two USB ports that can both be used for expanded storage, there is also a SD card slot that can be used for the same purpose but the best way is that you can add an 2.5 inch laptop hard drive into this computer and really give yourself more storage,

Vesa mount and ports

ACEPC AK2 is a small square that even comes with a VESA mounting bracket so that you can screw it into the back of your monitor and not waste any space on your desk. It comes pre-installed with Windows 10 and supports either VGA or HDMI for the outputs to a monitor. There are four USB ports (one USB 3.0 port) for a keyboard, mouse, and anything else that you would need to connect to it. There is also an Ethernet port if you want to run it wired but also has an internal WiFi card that supports b/g/n on either 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 Performance review

Games

As you can see in our tests on the ACEPC AK2 the results are the usual in this type of products, we can use the miniPC for titles with simple 3D effects like those we have in Android or several previous generations of PC, although it is possible that some modern games surprise us as a rule we can not use titles that require modern 3D effects.

Test environment

• • GTA V, Low settings, 720p resolution

• • Overwatch, Low settings, 720p resolution

• • DOTA 2, Low settings, 1080p resolution

• • Minecraft, Medium settings, 1080p resolution

• • World of Tanks, Medium settings, 1080p resolution

We performed our special test with DOTA 2 o with a screen resolution of 1920×1080, on the lowest settings, the system stays at only 27 fps which is a normal value for this processor. As we see this hardware is quite limited in 3D games but as we said it is not the main purpose of such device, luckily temperatures are very low.

As we see, with this hardware it is advisable to play simple titles such as those found on Android phones by downloading them from the Microsoft Store. Also indie 2D titles or have a basic load in 3D, emulators are also feasible but at most we are in some simple Wii titles.

VIDEO AND AUDIO TEST

Video format test

Regarding the video playback the ACEPC AK2 mini PC gives us positive results, the integrated Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU offers us an excellent playback quality for H.264 video with 1080p resolution, and we also have video acceleration for codecs HVEC / H265 but as we see in some HDR files we have some frame skips. In this model we have HDMI 1.4 video output with the maximum resolution of 4K@30fps, as we have seen it works very well with any video at 1080p or 4K resolution, the only limitation is in content with HDR information in some cases.

• • If you are interested only in KODI you can try the LibreELEC system for PC

Test results

• • The MKV, Blu-ray ISO and BDRemux formats are only containers, inside we can have different codecs, resolutions, audio channels, chapters or subtitles. To play the Blu-ray format menus we need KODI or a compatible program.

Audio format test

We test the audio adapter built into the ACEPC AK2 using a Yamaha RXV-577AV receiver and we checked that this mini PC supports 7.1 DD and DTS pass through sound. We recommend as always update to the latest all drivers with Windows Update before connecting the device to our AV receiver. In the ACEPC AK2 like the other Apollo Lake products we need to use direct show filters like the LAV to have multi-channel audio like for example with MPC-HC, the normal KODI version will not work we need to use KODI DSPlayer.

Test results

• • PCM – Stereo downmix from DD or DTS

• • Core – Only the core of the format Dolby / DTS is played

• • * Our AV receiver does not support these native formats but we check that it does downmix fine

ACEPC AK2 mini PC Intel Celeron J3455 streaming review

Youtube

In our test we play streaming content on the ACEPC AK2 in the usual channels like YouTube or other sources and we verified that we have no problems when playing videos. In YouTube we can play content with the VP9 codec quite correctly up to 4K with a 50% CPU usage, although if we look for better performance it is best to use another codec.

Streaming services with subscription

We check the most common streaming services playback various contents and we verified that all work properly, the power of this device is more than enough to see any kind of content with them. In Netflix we get to FullHD quality without complications, in the rest of services we get the maximum resolution possible.

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