Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Right now, this is a *very* new device. The bang for the buck is pretty amazing. Getting 4K video in something this low power (and low cost) is way beyond the previous generation of parts. It's also powerful enough to make a nice little standalone server. Drop in a 4 or 8 GB ram stick and a 2.5" ssd. This gizmo is quite responsive. I *assume* it runs Windows fine, that was not my target for this device. I brought it up under Linux. ...... and .... Intel has had the CPU out for only a little while. Linux is busy catching up with all the subtle ins and outs of the new device. That's a normal situation when a new chip comes out. Install any of the (as of July 18th 2015) standard Ubuntu builds and you will get a kernel in the 3.x series. This beast needs a kernel from the 4.x series. (If you are lost by this point, don't buy this as a Linux box right now). The issues are *not* specific to the NUC. All of the Braswell CPU based parts have exactly the same problem. It's not the board, it's simply the Linux world catching up with a bunch of new features. Returning the box and getting a new one will *not* fix the errors in kern.log. You *can* install a 4.x kernel from Ubuntu's nightly build process. They all are likely to have issues in them. Right now kernel 4.2 takes care of the video memory timeout check errors that 3.19 has when run on this device. It probably brings in a number of other interesting issues, but at least it takes care of the most obvious problems. The last post in this thread: [...] Gives a basic recipe for how to update the kernel. The exact files used in that post are no longer correct. They change far to often to keep something like that up to date. You will need to browse the folder they are in to get the current file names. If you really want to go into all this, Intel does have a NUC forum. If Ubuntu is not your favorite Linux, I'm sure that your distribution will have ways to get to a 4.x kernel. Just make sure the route is one you are willing to deal with *before* you buy one of these boxes. If none of this makes any sense *and* you want to run Linux - wait a while to buy this gizmo or any other board based on this very nice chip set. Let the people work out the issues and generate a stable released build with the 4.x kernel. There also is a bit of messy screen as Grub does it's video switching thing. I suppose one of these days I'll dig deep enough into the config files to fix it. It's also possible I'll just ignore it until Grub's "auto" feature works with the newer graphics. It's a pretty minor issue. ===== Just in case you *are* looking to install Win 7 on this box, there is a non-trivial process involved there as well: [...] Just like every Windows release ever, the install disk only handles hardware that was on the market when the disk came out. In this case it's USB3. In years gone by it was a whole variety of things. The fix has always been to get the drivers for the device into the install stream. Depending on the driver and Microsoft's whims, that can be pretty easy or (as in this case) a bit more difficult. It does indeed install (Yes, I bought another one of these...) it's just a bit of a hassle to do. Any time you put an "old" OS onto "new" hardware, these things come up .... If you take a look at the box it comes in (yes this is an edit a bit later ... who every reads the box !!!) it mentions Windows 8 compatibility but makes no mention of Windows 7 or before. The listing probably could mention this. There's a *lot* of information on the box and in the instructions (never read them ...) that might be helpful. A few highlights: Warranty is 3 years Input voltage range is 12 to 19V (will not go to ~10V for a full automotive install) The infrared sensor comes out the front panel. The power adapter says it's good from 100V to 240V AC 50/60 Hz. (Those of you on 25 Hz may be out of luck) It took exactly 4 weeks for the latest one to get from the factory in China to my doorstep. ============ Simply to save people digging through the comments: Under the kernel patch I'm running, there still is an issue with the WiFi drivers. There may be a workaround. I don't run WiFi on my box so it's not as big a deal to me as it may be to you. Some of the newer kernels have it fixed. with the incorporation of a newer Intel driver. Bios update is located here: [...] ====== Thanks to Oscar's comment below: For the wifi, download the firmware iwlwifi-7265D-13.ucode, place it under /lib/firmware and you're done. Both WiFi and Bluetooth work ok (at least in Ubuntu with 4.1.3 kernel). Direct download link to the firmware: [...] There is now a way to take care of the WiFi and Bluetooth drivers on Ubuntu. I suspect it also works on other versions of Linux. I'd say that's enough (plus Win 10 being out with all the drivers) to bump it up a star. Even if you NUC is dated *after* the bios release date, it probably does not have the latest BIOS. It's always worth checking. Bob