Xulu XR1 Max review: a tiny PC with attitude

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They’re usually underpowered, offering the ability to do little other than display a desktop and run a web browser. This tiny desktop PC, however, comes from a Kickstarter campaign by a Hong Kong firm

DESIGN AND BUILD

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Smaller (but taller) than a Mac mini and housed in a metal case that comes in multiple colours (ours is a fetching blue, but we like the look of the orange case too), the Xulu XR1 really won’t take up much space on your desk

FEATURES

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the size of the case, Xulu has managed to squeeze a lot of ports in. There are seven USB ports in total, three of them of the 2.0 variety most useful for keyboards, mice, slow USB sticks and the like. There are three 10Gbps USB 3 Type-A ports

Green Soul Mates

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The Ryzen 7 inside the XR1 Max is an APU, which is AMD’s designation for a chip that combines CPU and GPU cores. This means there's no discrete GPU, which may dishearten anyone wanting to use it for gaming, but there's not nearly enough space in the casing anyway.

SHOULD I BUY THE XULU XR1 MAX?

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The Kickstarter campaign that launched this tiny PC into the world raised fourteen times its goal, so there's definitely a market out there for this kind of small form-factor PC