[section_title title=Closer Look]Closer Look
Starting off with the packaging, as you can imagine the LIVA Mini PC Kit comes in a relatively small box which I feel looks pretty good. The main colour scheme is black and orange with white/orange text and I really like the contrast; Play3r loves orange! It has information regarding the brand, model number and it’s support for Windows 8.1.
On the top of the box, it lists the specifications which include the Intel SoC Bay Trail-M CPU and 2GB of DDR3 RAM among other things. Like the front, it has an illustration of the PC itself and also has silhouette style illustrations for the included accessories.
Taking a look at the contents of the kit, we have the casing which, as you can see, is all black. These 2 pieces are the basis of the entire system and I really like the fact you can assemble the PC yourself; this is a lot easier than it looks and that is saying something! The top half of the casing itself has a power switch, LED and the LIVA logo in the top right corner; I’m still loving the orange and black contrast.
Now we have the key component of the LIVA Mini PC Kit, the motherboard. ECS have gone with a passive cooled solution, which is to be expected given that the Intel SoC doesn’t kick out that much heat at all due it’s minuscule 25w TDP.  While it might look a little small there is quite a lot going on, we can also see here the rear I/O and the lovely orange heat sink.
There is plenty going on at the back of the board too.  Here we see the BIOS battery, plenty of chips and small capacitors, as well as the expansion card slot for the Wi-Fi card. Everything on this board screams Nano and it is no surprise that this is being touted as the world’s smallest Windows ready system.
The ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit features the following connectors/inputs:
1 x HDMI port
1 x D-SUB port
1 x Gigabit Ethernet port
1 x Power input (mini HDMI)
1 x USB 3.0 port
1 x USB 2.0 port
There is not much in the way of USB connections and I feel this could be a limiting factor, but given its small size and target market, this is to be expected. I really do love the inclusion of HDMI and I feel this will please many.
The orange heat sink is attached to the motherboard using 2 x Phillips spring loaded screws which shows that ECS has quality in mind where a lot of other companies might use cheap plastic push through pins. Not ECS though, although the application of the thermal paste is a little questionable.
Here we have the naked board minus the heatsink. As you can see, removing it opens a lot of the board up and we can now see the memory chips which as mentioned earlier, total 2GB of DDR3. The Intel SoC Bay Trail-M CPU is also on display, otherwise there is nothing untoward; it seems ECS have used all the space well.
The ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit is of course too small to house a proper SFF (small form factor) power supply and so is powered via an external mains adaptor. One thing to note is that this particular sample didn’t come supplied with a standard 3 pin UK plug so I had to go out and get an adaptor, though the cost of which is negligible it would be nice of ECS had included one in the kit.
Finally here is an illustration of the finished article after a pain free and easy assembly; a total novice could build this within 5 minutes which is fantastic. It has a nice black finish with an audio jack allowing you to connect headphones/stereo speakers.
Overall the LIVA Mini PC Kit looks something special, but how will it perform? Well I have been typing this entire review up on it just to see if it has what it takes so let’s hear my final thoughts…
