Conclusion

We already said Cherry Trail feels like Bay Trail done right, but that’s not fair to Intel. Bay Trail was as good as it gets at 22nm, as far as cheap tablet x86 chips go. At 14nm, Intel had a lot of extra room to bump up the GPU, which it did. Overall, Cherry Trail is hands down the best low-energy x86 platform for mass market applications.

As for the Beelink BT3, we can recommend it. We tried out a couple of the company’s Bay Trail systems last year and were impressed by the build quality and value for money. The BT3 is a tad bigger than these micro PCs, but it has better hardware, a copper heatsink for superior sustained performance, more storage and more expansion options.

We didn’t like the fact that the 64GB drive ships split into two partitions for no obvious reason, and we feel a single partition would be a better choice for most consumers. Other than that, and the “NUC” marketing talk, there’s nothing to complain about.

At $145 with free shipping via GearBest, the Beelink BT3 is not the cheapest Atom mini PC out there, but the premium is worth it if you want the latest Intel silicon and a bit more storage than usual (don’t forget about the fast SD card reader).

Bottom line: This is one of the best small brand mini PCs we had a chance to try out so far.

Beelink BT3 Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Performance
• Build quality
• Fast, full-size SD card reader
• Thermals/copper heatsink

Cons:

• Partitioned storage out of the box
• Issues with latest Intel Graphics driver update