The popularity of the NUC form factor has led to a resurgence in the nettop category. Thankfully, the core computing performance of the new systems has been miles ahead of the nettops of the past, and this has created an overall positive sentiment for the ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) in the minds of the consumers. While Intel, GIGABYTE, Zotac and ASRock have based their UCFF systems roughly on motherboards with similar size and features, ECS has been attempting to differentiate with fanless systems using Mini Lake boards and custom-designed chassis in their LIVA series. The feature set and pricing of the LIVA units make it target the developing and cost-sensitive markets. We have already reviewed two of their Bay Trail-based systems, the original LIVA and the LIVA X. Intel's Bay Trail SoCs, based on the Silvermont x86 cores and fabricated in a 22nm process, are power-efficient enough to deliver usable fanless PCs. In migrating Bay Trail down to a 14nm process, Intel also managed to bring up the graphics performance while retaining a similar thermal envelop. While Bay Trail-T migrates to 14nm under the Cherry Trail nomenclature, Bay Trail-M and Bay Trail-D (the Pentiums and Celerons) come under Braswell. The ECS LIVA x2 is based on the Intel Celeron N3050, a Braswell SoC.
The LIVA x2 is ECS's biggest and heaviest LIVA yet. Coming in at 156 x 83 x 51 mm, the unit feels quite solid in hand, despite the plastic exterior. The solidity is in part due to the heavy heat sink inside the unit. There are no sharp edges, which is a plus in our opinion. The unit, however, comes only in pearl white with a silver trim. Subjectively speaking, it brings down the appeal of the unit compared to the construction. I personally prefer the black finish of the LIVA and LIVA X reviewed earlier.