Just last week, the ECS Group has locally launched the smallest big news this side of the world – the Liva Windows-based Mini PC Kit dubbed as the smallest full-blown desktop currently in existence.
Coming in at a tiny 118mm x 70mm x 56mm (L x W x H) shell and 190g heft, the Liva really gives justice to the old Filipino saying, “maliit man, nakakapuwing din.” Inside its case is a specially designed ECS BAT-MINI motherboard with an on board Intel Bay Trail-M CPU, a low energy chip packing tons of power on tap. This is paired with 2GB of DDR3L memory for a rather smooth experience. If you think those specs are a joke, take note that I own a hybrid device using the same processor-RAM combo and I’m able to play NBA 2K14, The Sims 3, and even Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
32GB and 64GB variants of the Liva are available for multimedia and documents. There’s also one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port for your peripherals; HDMI and VGA outputs for your displays (yes, dual screens are possible!); and Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity. If you’ve ever wanted to build your own PC, you’re in luck. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo card and the corresponding antennas of the Liva ship with it uninstalled.
Possibly the most noteworthy feature of the Liva – besides its miniscule size – is its power consumption. It takes only 15W to juice up this gem. In comparison, standard light bulbs use around 15W, and an hour of an inverter aircon should equal about 100 hours of Liva usage. With this power requirement, you can even use high-quality power banks to turn the PC on if you choose to forego the included powerbrick with microUSB interface.
The Liva ships with the Ubuntu Linux-based OS out of the box, but ECS is dealing with sellers for the option to preinstall Windows 8.1. The 32GB Liva is now available for only PHP 8,888, with the 64GB variant set to be available early next year