Leaving inaccessible storage to one side, the biggest issue with this machine is the price.
Oddly enough, the same machine, pitched for educational use, costs only 169.80 directly fromAmazonin the UK.
An equivalent machine can be found on AliExpress for as little as $120.
This is made possible by using a NUC-sized enclosure made entirely of plastic.
Some parts are chrome painted to look metal, but theyre certainly not.
There is nothing on the right side, not even air vents.
Removal of the tray reveals a single SODIMM slot with a DDR4 module in place.
What you cant get to from this direction is the M.2 slot, frustratingly.
It lacks many cores, with only four, and none of these has hyperthreading.
Although the makers did at least give it 16GB of memory to help smooth it along.
However, there should have been enough to make the M.2 port NVMe spec, and that never happened.
That limits the speed of the storage to around 500MB/s, which isnt especially quick by current standards.
But of all the features here, the most disappointing are those associated with the USB ports.
But its unsuitable for applications that need graphics processing or number crunching.
Those buying a machine for its performance should accept from the outset that this platform isnt for you.
With this design circulating in various guises, would we recommend this one?
Should you buy a NiPoGi AK2 Plus?
Its not especially durable, but at least you wont be paying baggage excess for carrying it.
That severely limits how flexible this machine can be and what it can be used for.
There are more flexible designs at the same price or cheaper than this one.
If you use either of those, then this isnt the machine for you.
But the bonus here is more USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, and a USB-C port (Gen1) included.
Another selling point to anyone wanting a dedicated Firewall is that the U59 has two Ethernet ports.
