Tronsmart is among the better known mini PC makers from China. The company has been in the business for long enough to realize the value of community support, which is why Tronsmart devices are a lot more dev-friendly than most of its competitors’.
The Tronsmart Ara BJ19 is the newest mini PC from the company. However, unlike what you’re used to seeing from them, the Ara BJ19 isn’t a ready to play sort of a machine. It is, instead, a barebones PC that you will have to set up (yes, it’ll require additional hardware) before being able to use the device.
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The Ara BJ19 comes without any memory or storage, and that’s the minimum you have to supply to the box to make it usable. Otherwise, it has an Intel Celeron J1900 quad-core Bay Trail processor, and can run Windows and Linux… and perhaps some other distros later depending on dev support.
Also, the Ara BJ19 lacks a fanless design, but that means it should be better with cooling compared to other lightweight PCs. The box has an 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, a DisplayPort, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and a 3.5 headset jack. Radio supported are 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.
[Via]
do NOT buy Tronsmart hardware unless you want to get something which is not working correctly and has no proper firmware update like Draco AW80.
HI Marcin:
Sorry that our Draco AW80 make you feel upset. We don’t stop support our device, we always waiting the new SDK 3.0 from allwinner soc, and release new firmware, during this time, we also work with other ROM developer, like remix to release other firmware to support this device, you can check that in our website. We also push the allwinner to release the linux OS with proper hardware decoding which is the unique one in the market. For android os, i am not sure which firmware you are base on, the latest firmware 0528 version already improve a lot in the video playback. and recently we plan to release another android os. for XBMC(kodi) you guys are always asking, we are working with vidon xbmc,and their engineer is working with us to modify the sdk and porting their xbmc (kodi) to our device.
but if you still don’t happy with our device, we offer worry free after-sale support. We have informed all of our distributors to give the tronsmart customers worry-free support. If you have any problem with the distributor returns, please directly contact support@tronsmart.com. We are glad to help you out.
Thanks
Tronsmart Customer Care
Speachless…..,
Thats customer service. 😉
“[edit] In yo Face Marcin!!:P”
I have used a few Tronsmart devices and had no issues. Maybe yours was just a dud, it happens with all tech products.
It’s not Tronsmarts fault but Allwinners. Never use devices with Allwinner SoCs, they are all crap.
Tronsmart any chance of bullying Intel out of lower price core m chips to put in your nuc? !!!
Thanks for your suggestion, however, the core-m soc is really expensive right now, there is no chance to get a lower price right now.
Yeah Intel really know how to charge for there products.what about a Ubuntu mate box with hardware acceleration ?
It will be hard to compete with intel’s NUC on build quality, so low price is the only way.
What kind of drive connector it offers: SATA, mSATA, M.2, other ??
I have a couple of questions on BJ19. 1) As I understand, the device uses common WiFi card with mini PCIe interface which can be further replaced to any other to owner’s taste? 2) If purchased “as is”, i.e. without hard drive, is BJ19 supplied with Windows OS in any manner? Or it’s only possible to get the device with installed OS if it’s bought with optional hard drive from Tronsmart?