Alfawise T1 (Beelink S2) Gemini Lake N4100 Mini PC Review

Alfawise T1 (Beelink S2) Gemini Lake N4100 Mini PC Review

A solid Mini PC from Beelink it’s really the Beelink S2 this mini PC. But rebranded as the AlfawiseT1, an overall great little mini PC with good thermals it will not go past 85 degrees c. Plenty of storage options (M.2 SSD or 2.5″) Fast eMMC 5.1 spec but only 4GB of RAM. This is it’s only really a weakness. The performance jump of around 25% more single core speeds and about 19% multi-core means I wouldn’t look at the last gen Celeron N3450 Apollo Lakes anymore unless the price was really good.

With the move to the Gemini lake, we get 2mb cache more, 200Mhz more turbo speeds and HDMI 4k up to 60hz (finally) this model also has two HDMI out’s so this means it will run up to two 4k monitors or TV’s.

So you can’t go wrong with this mini PC, if you want the 8GB, wait for them to release an 8GB model or go for the Beelink S2 with 8GB. This model is currently selling for $199 on special at the moment.

Video index:

01:29 – Unboxing
01:56 – Design & Ports
02:54 – Internals
03:27 – Adding an M.2 SSD
04:44 – Size vs Intel NUC
05:30 – Bios
05:49 – First boot
05:59 – Devices
07:32 – Memory & Windows
08:11 – Heavy Multi-tasking
09:14 – Benchmarks
10:06 – Doc & browser use
11:19 – 4k video tests
13:09 – Gaming
14:35 – Power & Thermals
15:31 – Linux
15:57 – Recap
17:33 – Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Up to 25% faster CPU than the Apollo Lake
  • Plenty of ports, Gigabit LAN, HDMI 2.0 x 2
  • 2.5” HDD, M.2 2242 and 2280 SATA3 support
  • Thermals plateau at 85 degrees C

Cons:

  • 4GB of RAM only, 2133Mhz and cannot be upgraded
  • USB ports are upside down (Very minor)
  • GPU performance slower than expected for Intel UHD 600 For light workloads only
Video tech reviewer and tech blogger. I have a huge interest in the latest tech, tablets, laptops, mobiles, drones, and even e-scooters. Active in the tech community since 2008 days of the Omnia i900 Windows phone. Samsungi8910omnia.com, Samsunggalaxysforums.com founder from way back.

7 Comments

  1. A little trick…
    My t1 kept hitting 100% cpu usage resulting in constant lags on opening apps.
    It was caused by the timebrokersvc consuming CPU fo nothing.

    In regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TimeBrokerSvc

    change the value of “Start” from 3 to 4 to deactivate it. Reboot and enjoy a much much more fluide system.

  2. 1. is it able to fit both 7mm and 9.5mm 2.5 inch hdd securely?

    2. Is there a more detailed video for the removal of the casing/installing of m2 ssd? Can everything be placed securely back after opening it?

  3. Wayting for my Beelink S2 with N5000 and 8Gb RAM

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