Another year rolls by and with it another mini PC model released by Azulle. This time we have the successor of the Byte3, appropriately named the Azulle Byte4. We have had a lot of great experience with Azulle products when it comes to using mini PCs for everything from simple solutions to exhibit solutions for digital advertising/displays, and more. We still have many of Azulle’s models floating around that have been used for various tasks (ie, the Byte3 is currently in use with Linux installed for the purpose of testing things like PiHole across a network).
The Azulle Byte4 Mini Windows 10 Pro PC is another great example of the attention they put into their products.
Starting with the shell/case of the PC itself, the construction of it features a solid (mostly) plastic design that covers around the sides and top. It feels durable and should be able to take a lot of use over the years. It is also visually pleasing vs some of the plainer options out there that simply looks like a small box with maybe a single logo on top.
The bottom side of the unit features a solid aluminum plate, which is incredibly important for heat dispersion. This is because the unit itself has no fans (hence “fanless” in the title). The whole case actually helps to bring heat away from the electronics inside, but this plate will play an additional role that we will cover in a moment.
The four rubber feet at each corner are actually screws that allow you to remove the bottom plate. They are not pads stuck over the screws but are the screws themselves.
On one side, you have all of your USB connectivity and a micro SD slot. The micro SD slot can make use of cards up to 512GB in size for transferring files back and forth between mobile devices. The USB ports are all USB 3.0 (there are no 2.0 ports snuck into the mix of this design like some models), giving you fast transfers all around. There are four USB type-A ports for any peripherals or connected drives, and a USB-C port in the middle. So you have plenty of options for connectivity for such a small PC.
The backside of the unit contains everything else. You get two gigabit Ethernet connections, one of which can be used for POE (Power Over Ethernet). Not something you typically find in a mini PC. You also have a DisplayPort (1.2) connection, as well as an HDMI (2.0). Next to those is a VGA port for whatever reason. Personally, we can never end our frustration over why VGA still exists at all in the world. It isn’t Azulle’s fault, but the fault of the many who refuse to let things go (as my colleague explains in the video below, at the end of this review). Altogether, the Byte4 supports up to three screens that you can connect to it.
There is also a power connection for its included cord, and a laptop lock hole, so you can secure it in place in case there are people walking around you, may not know too well.
You will also notice two screw holes in the above image, at the bottom two corners of the bottom plate that have been removed by us. This is so that you can remove the plate at the bottom. So in order to drop that plate on the bottom, you have to remove all four rubber feet (screws) as well as these two bottom ones in the back.
Removing that bottom plate reveals everything inside that you can play with and upgrade. This is where things get interesting.
It makes use of 64GB of integrated eMMC for storage by default. At first, this doesn’t seem like a lot, and this is because it isn’t. Many of the modern mini PC models coming out today generally have 128GB+ of SATA SSD, making this one of the few drops in specs (comparatively) for this model. However, eMMC is capable of up to 400MB/s, so speed-wise, it is still relevant at least.
Thankfully, you do have plenty of ways of upgrading the capacity of this unit. Besides the micro SD card slot on the side (which we only recommend for transferring files back and forth to other devices) and the USB ports that can be used for external drives, you have two options inside as well.
You have the ability to add a 2.5″ SATA drive, let it be a normal spinning HDD or an SSD. They even provide a connection for the drive (SATA cable adapters). Some companies seem to neglect that last detail, which can get annoying when the user may not understand what kind of cable or ribbon they need to buy in order to add a drive like that. So it is nice to see that everything is ready to go out of the box. Then you have another upgradable option as well, which is a little faster.
Off to the side of the board, if you lift those SATA cables out of the way, you’ll find an M.2 slot for NVMe drives. Now, we are talking business. NVMe SSD is the future (currently) of drive technology when it comes to speed. It is much faster than SATA and completely blows normal HDDs away. So we love to see mini PCs with NVMe capabilities.
The only issue with NVMe drives is that they can get really hot. However, Azulle includes a small bracket inside that reaches down from the bottom plate to run across the NVMe drive. They even include the thermal pad to go in between the drive and that bracket. You can see that silver bracket in the second-to-last image at the top of the image where the bottom plate is laying above the opened unit. This helps to transfer heat to the bottom plate so it can be spread out and away from the drive, thus helping to reduce its internal temperature.
We have seen a number of companies that completely lack this feature in their products. When that happens, the temperature of the drive can climb to unsafe numbers, thus reducing its lifespan (and NVMe is not cheap). So this is another thumbs up for Azulle.
A note regarding installing an NVMe or SATA drive already loaded with Windows (vs installing Windows after the drive has been installed): If you install an NVMe with Windows and find that everytime you shutdown, it instead leads you to the login screen instead of shutting down, do the following…
– Head to Control Panel
– Visit “Power Options”
– Click on “What the power buttons do”
– Click on “Change settings that are currently unavailable”
– Uncheck “Turn on Fast Startup”This disables Fast Startup which can sometimes cause this to happen. Now, when you shut down, it will always shut down properly. An odd thing that hopefully will be fixed within a future update to Windows and it doesn’t seem to affect everyone on the same system. It’s an anomoly for now, but we did experience it ourselves when we tried an NVMe in this system (so, FYI). It still boots up plenty fast.
Finally, you have the memory inside that can be upgraded. Depending on the model you buy, you will either have 4GB or 8GB of DDR4 memory. The unit we have been testing contains 4GB. You can upgrade the 4GB model to 8GB but not the other since this PC does max out at 8GB. Or at least, that’s what you’d think if you looked up the specs of the CPU. Intel lists the CPU as supporting a max of 8GB, but this doesn’t seem to be the case, which we’ll touch on in a quick second.
Our standards have climbed over time and we prefer to see no less than 8GB in any PC (mini or full size) running Windows 10, and prefer the option of being able to upgrade to 16GB in case the user plans to use it in a way that it might be multi-tasking a bit.
We did upgrade the unit we have been testing by replacing the 4GB module with an 8GB module since we have plenty lying around. There are two slots inside, so you can also two modules as long as you don’t go over what it supports, else the additional memory won’t register. The difference in performance is quite noticeable and we do recommend going with 8GB minimum. However, you may want to do that yourself since the price between PC units is a bit more than it would cost to upgrade yourself (here are some prices on Newegg).
Of course, curiosity can sometimes make you do fun things. Like inserting even more RAM just to make sure the listed limitations are accurate. Normally, you are faced with what you’d expect, but sometimes can be given a nice surprise instead. In our case, it was a nice surprise. We inserted another 8GB stick of memory and to our surprise, it accepted it. Windows reported 16GB of RAM and was able to make use of it just fine it seemed. Well then! That just brought the score up!
The processor inside is not upgradable of course. We haven’t worked with a single mini PC option that offered the ability to swap the processor out since it is always embedded. This is because mini PCs make use of mobile processors as you’d never have space or the cooling for a full-size option.
The one inside this unit is an Intel Gemini Lake 4125 Quad-Core. A 2GHz processor with burst speeds of up to 2.7GHz, depending on what you are doing at any given time. This is a good processor for this purpose outside of the memory (DDR4 RAM) limitations.
Beyond that, you have Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11 AC WiFi (both 2.4 and 5GHz). This covers any wireless device as well as wireless connectivity to your network if you don’t want to make use of the Ethernet connections on the back. We always prefer Ethernet, but not everyone has the luxury of having ports on all of their walls to keep from having to run a long cable around.
We spent a lot of time playing around with various apps and despite being able to accept 16GB of RAM (which was perfect for our expectations of a general system), we did run into limitations. This, of course, was because you are dependant upon Intel’s built-in graphics. You can’t upgrade to a dedicated video card like you could a normal system. So no heavy gaming or video editing. However, it can play some light to moderate games just fine, and it did pretty well working within Photoshop between browsing various sites.
It’s best as a general workstation or computer to have available when you need it. It would be perfect for living rooms and theaters for video streaming or playback of files up to 4K. It would also work great for digital signage during exhibit/convention shows. Making this a pretty decent mini PC as long as you are willing to upgrade the RAM to 8GB minimum (preferably 16GB). The prices aren’t bad for the memory (right now, at least), so why not?
Last Update: 11-27-2020 (to reflect some of the extended testing we did with the hardware)
Our Conclusion
So you have fast connectivity, a fast CPU, and fast storage (with the ability to upgrade to something even faster). All of this comes together to make for a wonderful mini PC. Usually, we find ourselves dumping Windows and installing Linux on the mini solutions because you get a more stable experience. However, the hardware inside this one is a great starting point for a stable Windows experience. So we will likely leave Windows on this unit.
We highly recommend upgrading the storage to either SATA or NVMe depending on your budget. This is because 64GB is pretty weak for internal storage and severely limits you on what you can achieve with it. You want more space for sure. The RAM can be upgraded yourself, so going with the 4GB model and then buying an extra stick of RAM to bring it to 8GB is the most affordable approach. Or, buying 2x 8GB sticks to bring it to 16GB to make it a fantastic mini PC that can achieve many things.
It just would have been nice to see no less than 128GB for the integrated eMMC storage. 64GB feels so outdated unless you were buying into a cheap phone or tablet. Beyond that, this is a solid mini PC with a lot of capability and quality manufacturing. You just have to upgrade some stuff to make it shine.
Our Rating | Average Price* $249 – $326 | ||
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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