Kaser Net'sPC2 YF810-8G Review: $100 For An Android Nettop?

Features
By Andrew Ku, Adam Overa
published

What’s the cheapest computer you can buy today? And we're not talking Raspberry Pi. We still need enough horsepower to email, browse the Web, or play a movie. Kaser claims to have the answer with its $100 Android-based nettop. But is it up to the task?

Beyond The Benchmarks: UI Lag And More

UI Lag

While the benchmarks show that the Kaser is of highly-questionable value, there’s a whole lot more ugliness that they don’t show. One thing that kills the user experience faster than poor frame rates and slow-loading webpages is UI lag. Although benchmarks cannot quantify this occurrence, a video is worth a thousand words:

As you can see, the Kaser is slow to respond to input. Nearly every time you interact with the YF810-8G, there is a noticeably bothersome wait period. This happens when you click on a link, open an app, press a key, return to the home screen, close an app, switch apps, go back, and so on. Yes folks, this type of constant, pervasive delay goes from irksome to irritating to infuriating in no time flat. UI lag is no laughing matter. In a nutshell, it renders the Net'sPC2 YF810-8G effectively unusable.

While most of the benchmark results in relation to the comparison devices speak for themselves, after you factor in UI lag, there is one odd man out. Even though the LG Optimus S generally tests worse than the Kaser, its tiny screen and lighter OS save the day in actual usage, making the half-priced burner more fluid to use than the Net'sPC2. Throw in the fact that the burner is half the price of the YF810-8G (not including a display), yet still bests the Kaser in user experience and real-world Web browsing, and we’re quickly running out of reasons to buy this product.

HTPC Usage

For those of you thinking that the YF810-8G will make a cheap Netflix box, think again. There are several problems with this. First, Android was never intended for use on the large screen, and the version that ships in the Kaser is limited to 720p. Yup. Remember those monitor settings on page three? All those resolutions, right? Wrong. Anything beyond 720p (1280x720) is up-scaled. Doh!

Unless you’re still rocking a 720p HDTV, the Kaser won’t produce a very good picture. But wait, it gets worse. Even set to 720p on a 720p screen, the Kaser lacks the hardware decoding chops needed to handle HD playback from Netflix. So, for most of us, that would be a 720p image up-scaled to 1080p, playing back in standard-def. It looks absolutely horrendous.

Besides, the Kaser comes with wired peripherals, so then you’re talking about spending at least another $30 for a decent quality wireless keyboard/trackpad combo. If a media streamer is your intent, forget it. You’re much better off saving some cash and getting a set-top HD streaming box. For just slightly more than the YF810-8G, you can get one that also includes a Blu-ray player.

Server Usage

Considering the limited stage of Linux for ARM, and the Kaser’s system specs, this thing can’t even be re-purposed as a simple server. Any of the beige boxen in your garage are better suited for that. And that about wraps it up. We’re officially out of conceivable uses for this product.

Andrew Ku
26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Matsushima
    Seriously? Another slow ARM processor with a bloated phone OS on a desktop. Tragic.
    Reply
  • Matsushima
    I have something like that, a bloated Android HTPC that looks a bit like Raspberry Pi.
    Reply
  • dingo07
    How about adding it to the NAV system in a 2006 Acura TL that has a 7" touchscreen?
    Reply
  • Firion87
    Now AMD's APU is incredibly cheap, add 1g of ram a hdd lying around your home and your way better off with a x86 than this underpowered NO FLASH compatible no nothing system. Why are they even talking about such systems? I'm an Intel fanboy but got a AMD e350 system for my parents. I am amazed how well that little thing works for pretty much anything you encounter in daily use for little money (hdd 120g second hand, case and psu can be purchased for as little as 35$, mb+ram 65$ brand new)
    Reply
  • ET3D
    Wow, this is really overpriced or underspecced or both. The Allwinner A10 is simply a crappy chip. Single core Cortex A8, 16-bit RAM interface, 512MB limitation, that's pretty crap. I bought a Chinese tablet (Onda V712) for $125 with a quad core A7, 2GB of RAM and an 1280x800 IPS screen, so if you drop the screen I imagine this could all be put into $100, and provide much better performance. (It's about as powerful as the Nexus 7, a little slower on the CPU side and faster on the GPU side.)
    As for Android, it should also be possible to make it more usable. A better specced device would have 1080p native, and allowing to change DPI settings on the fly is likely to do wonders to usability on a bit screen (i.e., scale the UI instead of blowing it up).
    Android also has some limited windows. It's a hack, but there are apps which support it, such as Tiny Apps, which provides a notes app, calculator, paint, music player and music recorder all running in their own small windows. There are also floating video players ("floating" is the Android app way of saying "windowed") and floating web browsers.
    I think that an Android PC could be made usable (though not great). This one isn't it, and I feel that testing was too limited, but I won't fault you for it because any A10 device is not really worth a second look.
    Reply
  • ET3D
    I checked out some Chinese stores, and indeed it's possible to buy something specced link my tablet (Allwinner A31, 2GB RAM, ...) for $90, and some dual core A9 1GB devices in the $80-$100 range. These should be much better than this particular piece of crap.
    Reply
  • Aljhon Pobar
    "armed with a single Cortex-A8 core running at 1.0 GHz. For a little perspective, that's about half of the processing power wielded by the original iPad. "
    How come? 1st Gen iPad is powered by Apple A4 SoC which uses a 1GHz Cortex A8. And this Allwiner A10 is powered by the same Cortex A8.
    This is very disappointing for a well known techsite.
    Reply
  • obarthelemy
    how did you manage to select such a crappy representative of Android PCs, when for example the similarly priced Minix Neo X5 is several times more powerful and has an excellent, frequently updated OS ?
    Reply
  • ET3D
    G-Box Midnight MX2 is another good choice you might want to review. Serves as a good XBMC player out of the box, but can be used as an Android mini PC.
    Reply
  • joebob2000
    About 6 months ago I picked up a dual CPU/quad GPU android PC stick, for $50 shipped. It lacks hardware ethernet or the plethora of USB ports, but it is pretty darn fast for how cheap it is. I suspect Kaser was the first of the "android pc" vendors to submit something to Tom's but is it too hard to hit up Aliexpress for comparable priced units?
    Reply