I’ve recently bought a second-hand Dell Wyse 5070 on the advice of Chris from Linux After Dark. It is a perfectly-silent device which runs Windows 11 and Office 365 without breaking sweat, and as it has very frugal energy requirements it can be left on 24 hours a day to download Linux ISOs and serve them over the network. Although I only paid £30 for the device itself (which was, essentially, in “new” condition), I did have to buy a larger SSD and a Windows licence, which brought the price up to a comfortable three-figure sum.
Having cancelled an order for a Raspberry Pi 5, I decided to splash out on another low power Intel-based device. I settled on the Firebat T8 Plus from the Cutesliving Store on AliExpress. This came with a 4 core/thread Celeron N100 processor, 16GB DDR5 RAM and 512GB M2 SATA SSD. With VAT, I paid £123.74 and the device arrived from China within a week. I’ve been hugely impressed with it, and it is currently running Ubuntu and hosting multiple services, virtual machines and containers. The T8 is more powerful than the Wyse 5070, but as it isn’t silent (it has a small, but quiet, fan) it lives in a cupboard under the stairs. I now had all the computers I could possibly need.
Of course, when I saw a deal a few weeks later on another Firebat T8 Plus on the Factory Direct Collected Store on AliExpress for only £95.96 including VAT and delivery, I felt it churlish to refuse. This one took a day or 2 longer to arrive. Here’s the unboxing and first-use experience.
Packaging 🔗
The device was shipped in a plain grey plastic bag. Inside was a thin card box bearing the logo “Mini PC”, wrapper in transparent plastic shrink wrap.
The first layer 🔗
Opening the box reveals a square of dark grey foam material, under which is a short, paper printed user manual. Removing the manual reveals the PC itself. There is probably about 1cm of protective material above the device, including the manual, foam lining and card box top. The foam protection is thicker around the four sides of the computer.
A chlorinated polyethylene bag wraps the Firebat T8.
The device 🔗
The machine is a dinky little square-topped cuboid with rounded corners. The case is made from a silvery plastic. The material looks cheap - nobody is going to mistake this for an Apple device or a high end NUC. There’s a small power button with integrated LED on the front.
The second layer 🔗
First run 🔗
Reinstalling Windows 🔗
Sadly, some similar devices have been known to ship with malware in the default Windows install. Taking no chances, I wiped the drive and reinstalled Windows via a USB stick made with the Windows Media Creation Tool downloaded directly from Microsoft on another machine. This took a fair bit longer than the OEM setup process, and I did have to use an online Microsoft account for my user.
Happily, I was not asked for a key during the install process, and the Windows licence was automatically applied. I didn’t have to manually install any drivers and the process was simple, if lengthy.
Further steps 🔗
I didn’t really need another Windows box, so I’ve wiped that and installed Linux. Again, setup was simple with no need to install drivers, albeit I haven’t tried the Wifi card. I’m delighted with this device and would recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap and reasonably powerful mini computer for light desktop or server tasks.
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