LIVA QC710 Windows on ARM Devkit Revealed
It's not really a devkit
Announced back in May, the ECS LIVA QC710 mini desktop PC based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c is now available on the Microsoft Store. Via CNX Software.
Described as a ‘developer kit’, the mini PC, which runs Windows 10 Home for Arm but can be upgraded to Windows 11, appears to be US-only and sells for $219, though students, parents, teachers and the military can get this down to $197.10. No refunds are available, however, if you don’t like it as this is more of an app test device than general consumer tech.
More of a development testbed than anything you’d actually want to develop apps on, the QC710 has a very low spec, with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and just a few ports (Ethernet 10/100, micro SD, 1x HDMI, 1x USB 2, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, and a Type-C for power) alongside Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth. It’s pitched toward silent operating and instant-on operation rather than extreme processing power. It’s pretty small, at 1.38 x 4.69 x 4.59 in (35.05 x 119.13 x 116.58 mm) and weighs just 0.51lb (0.23kg). For comparison, the M1 Mac Mini measures 7.7 inches on each side and is 1.4 inches thick, and weighs 2.9lbs.
The Snapdragon 7c is an 8nm chip with eight 64bit cores running at up to 2.4GHz, enough GPU to power 4K HDR video, and a built-in LTE modem. A Gen2 version with better clock speeds (2.55GHz) and faster memory controller was announced in May, but it’s not entirely clear which version is powering this devkit. The Snapdragon 8c, offering 3.15GHz and a better GPU on a 7nm process, is also available.
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Ian Evenden is a UK-based news writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He’ll write about anything, but stories about Raspberry Pi and DIY robots seem to find their way to him.
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C3ME Fact check: the HDMI port only supports 2K, not 4K. And only 4GB of memory means you will not be doing much multitasking with your multitasking operating system.Reply