HTPC is a great choice for those who wants a PC for their living room that can act as both media player and couch PC but building one can be quite a hassle if you’re not familiar with the components you need and not to mention the cost to build one.
Many brand emerges with its own version of affordable mini PC to fulfill the needs and the ASUS VivoPC VM62N-G085R that we’re reviewing today is among those mini PC that doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg.
This mysterious sleek black box here contains the ASUS VivoPC VM62N-G085R that we’ll be reviewing today. No extra details of the product is shown on the box though.
What’s inside the box :
ASUS VivoPC VM62N-G085R
Power cord
DC adapter
The front of the VivoPC VM62N-G085R is perfectly clean, no visible I/O ports can be found here.
We turned the VivoPC VM62N-G085R around, you’ll find the power on / off button, built-in memory card reader, locking mechanism for the top cover, DC power adapter port and the exhaust vent on the left. As for the right side, you’ll find an impressive amount of I/O ports i.e: 4 x USB 3.0 ports, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI port, 1 Ethernet port, 2 x USB 2.0 port, Audio jacks, SPDIF.
At the bottom you’ll find 4 rubber feet that provide sufficient grip to keep the VivoPC VM62N-G085R in place.
Taking apart the VivoPC VM62N-G085R, the black box lying on top of the VivoPC VM62N-G085R in the picture above is the first thing you’ll in to remove after removing the top cover.
Turns out to be an enclosure for your storage devices.
Here’s how things looks like inside the enclosure, you can install up to 2 unit of 2.5″ drive in the enclosure if you need that extra storage.
Under the enclosure, you’ll find the memory slot for memory upgrade if the included 4GB worth of memory is not enough for your current usage.
We take a further step in taking apart the chassis.
What’s cooling both the GPU and CPU is almost as the same type of heatsink that we normally found on notebooks.
The wireless mSATA module that powers the wireless connectivity of the VivoPC VM62N-G085R.
The built in speaker of the VivoPC VM62N-G085R for audio output in case if you didn’t plan to have any external sound system / speakers attached to it.
User Experience
Graphically demanding games like Crysis 3, Far Cry 4, Battlefield 4 etc might be a no go for the VivoPC VM62N-G085R, but games for your living room enjoyment such as the Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution that we’ve tested runs great without any issue.
Other than games, the VivoPC VM62N-G085R makes a good living room computer and you can enjoy watching youtube on the couch instead of sitting in front of your PC all the time.
If you just want to get off the internet and enjoy your movies, the the VivoPC VM62N is your personal home theater PC (HTPC) as well.
Load Temperature
We started our test with room temperature of 30º C and performed tasks as listed below:
Normal browsing
Playing HD video
Gaming
Load temperature of all tasks performed seems pretty reasonable and the highest temperature that we get is during gaming session which the temperature is able to maintain below 70ºC.
Verdict While the ASUS VivoPC VM62N-G085R doesn’t packs as much power as a high-end HTPC, it still works great as a home entertainment PC for your living room, Be it movies, web browsing or lightweight gaming. The compact design is a plus for those who favors compact PC because even though you’d be able to build a custom HTPC that performs on par at lower cost, but achieving the same form factor as the VivoPC VM62N-G085R is extremely difficult.
