Firebat T8 Plus Unboxing

· 813 words · 4 minute read

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 🔗

A plain grey plastic bag

The T8 box in protective transparent shrink wrap. The top of the box is sliver-grey and says “Mini PC”, with a similar logo on the darker anterior side of the box

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 🔗

The box lid has been opened and there is a top lining of dark grey foam material

The top foam lining has been removed revealing a printed paper pamphlet saying “Mini PC” then “User Manual” in English and other languages

Below this is the PC itself, currently wrapped in a bag bearing a triangular CPE 07 recycling logo. There is a surrounding layer of the dark lining foam

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.

The computer, in its bag, has been removed from the box

A chlorinated polyethylene bag wraps the Firebat T8.

The device 🔗

An anterosuperior oblique view of the device, which is a compressed silvery cube with rounded corners. There is a single power button on the front panel. The surface area of the device is smaller than the adjacent instruction manual

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.

Lateral view showing 3 full size HDMI ports in a row

On one side there are 3 full size HDMI ports. I don’t know if they are all of the same specification.

Other lateral view showing 3 USB ports in a row

On the other side are 3 USB3 ports. Sadly there are no USB-C ports on this machine.

Posterior view. This has a black plastic inset into the silver top case. On the left is a round barrel socket. Medially are 2 side-by-side ethernet ports. To the right is a 3.5mm audio socket and just above this is a Kensington lock

The back panel features a cutaway section. There’s a socket for the barrel jack of the power supply (sadly no USB-C power here), 2 ethernet ports, an audio socket and a Kensington security slot. Below all of these is a ventilation grill.

The second layer 🔗

The second layer in the box showing a cardboard insert with a round hole in the middle

The insert has been removed and opened showing some items which are not clearly seen

3 plastic bags containing a power supply, a vesa bracket and some screws. There’s also a tightly-wound HDMI cable with plastic protective covers over both ends

Within a separate cardboard insert are a power supply, a vesa mounting bracket with screws and a short HDMI cable.

The power supply which is a wall-wart type with a European-style 2 prong plug and a barrel connector at the other end

The power supply has a European plug, so I had to buy a suitable adapter.

First run 🔗

Screenshot of an AMI BIOS splash screen

The BIOS splash screen shows a generic American Megatrends logo. There is no Firebat branding.

A Windows 11 setup screen

Next there is the Windows 11 setup process. It sets up a local user, without the option to add a Microsoft account. This is likely preferable to many people but seems unusual to me. Maybe this is the default OEM experience?

A Windows 11 start menu with only a few icons

After a bit of rebooting, I was presented by a familiar Windows 11 start screen. There didn’t seem to be many preinstalled applications, which was nice to see.

The Windows activation screen, stating “Windows is activated with a digital licence”

We seem to be running Windows 11 Pro, and the software is activated.

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.

Another Windows activation screen

A screen showing system specs

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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