Chinese device maker Mele is showing off a bunch of new products at the HKTDC show in Hong Kong this week, and the folks at Notebook Italia got a look at a few of the more interesting models

The Mele PCG63-APL2 is a compact desktop computer with Intel Apollo Lake low-power processor options and a fanless design, while the Mele PCG63-KBL1 has 7th-gen Intel Kaby Lake chips.

Mele’s PCG37, meanwhile, is a smaller model that’s available with Apollo Lake or Kaby Lake chips, and the PCHD26 is a an Apollo Lake PC Stick that plugs directly into the HDMI port of a TV or monitor.

The PCG63 models are rectangular devices with a large heat sink on top. It will be available with a choice of Celeron J3355, Celeron J3455, or Pentium J4205 Apollo Lake chips or Core i3-7100U, Core i5-7200U, or Core i7-7500U Kaby Lake processors.

While the Apollo Lake versions will rely exclusively on passive cooling for silent operation, models that ship with a Kaby Lake CPU will have also include a fan.

Each model supports up to 32GB of eMMC storage and has two SODIMM slots for RAM, an M.2 slot for solid state storage, and a SATA bay for a hard drive or SSD.

The PCG37 has similar specs, including a heat sink on the top of the case. But it’s a smaller, square-shaped device that looks more like an Intel NUC.

Barebones models will sell for $99 and up.

The PCHD26 PC stick will be available with up to a Pentium N4200 processor, up to 6GB of RAM, and up to 32GB of eMMC storage. It also has a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, a microSD card slot, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and an HDMI 1.3 connector.

Mele will sell the new PC stick with Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux and this model is expected to sell for $159 and up. Oh, and it’s also fanless.

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11 replies on “Mele unveils a bunch of new mini PCs”

  1. I think this new lineup is perhaps the most exciting announcement of small form factor hardware in recent months.

  2. Few people understand the blahblah-Lake nomenclature, few normal people at least. I wish there was an easier way to know the relative power of a microprocessor family based on the name, and not have to go pull out the encyclopedia of Intel nameology to get an idea of the capabilities of whatever new product you are introducing.

    1. “I wish there was an easier way to know the relative power of a microprocessor family based on the name”

      What you want is already there! It’s in the other words that are included with the different processors:
      Celeron < Pentium < i3 < i5 < i7.

      Honestly, there's not that much difference between successive product cycles (different "Lakes"). Just look at those other words to decide which ones are powerful enough for you.

      1. does that mean Celeron replaces Atom, and Pentium replaces the core M?

        I used to be an avid Intel follower, but I’ve lost track of their xxx-Lake, ever since Haswell. And each new generation brings barely any improvement at all.

        1. Karjenga:

          Yes, Celeron is the de-facto replacement for Atom. They got rid of the Atom line and didn’t replace it with anything, so Celeron is now the new low-end chip.

          Core M is actually replaced by laptop i3 chips. There were a couple of generations of chips where they used “Core M”, and then Core M3 and Core M5, instead of i3 and i5 on their low-powered laptop chips. They stopped doing that, and now just call them i3 and i5 chips again.

          And yes, they really don’t have much improvement for each new generation. They haven’t had much competition from AMD in the last decade, and this is what results. Hopefully Ryzen will spur Intel into action and bring us some real improvements.

      2. Except some i7 models only come with two cores which would put em under a quad i5.

        1. Only if you’re comparing desktop CPUs to laptop ones. I guarantee you that every CPU in these Mele products is a mobile chip, so the direct model comparison is valid.

          Besides, if you know enough to know that some i7s only have 2 cores and some i5s have 4, then you know enough to know that core count is *not* what makes one chip better than another. Just like MHz was no longer the determining factor 15 years ago.

          You know better then that, you’re just trying to be annoying.

          1. I’m having a hard time digesting your comment. If it’s not number of cores and clock speed that matter, what do you believe determines a processor’s performance?

          2. Sure, people who know about chips can make sense of it, but regular consumers might not know there’s a huge difference even though it’s the same i7 sticker on the outside

    2. I follow The Guardian’s “Ask Jack” Jack Schofield’s advice and jump to
      notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html
      first for a quick ranking, then a detailed look as a few “tests”

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