We had to wait a long time for it, but the Ockel Sirius A Pro is finally coming to the Netherlands. After a long crowdfunding campaign, the Sirius A is ready for production and Computer!Totaal was the first to get started.
Ockel Sirius A Pro
Sirius A / Sirius A ProPrice € 699,- / € 799,-
Processor Intel Atom x7-Z8750
RAM 4GB/8GB DDR3
Storage 64GB / 128GB eMMC
Screen 6 inch touch screen
Resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels
OS Windows 10 Home / Pro 64-bit
Connections 2x USB 3.1,
1 x USB-C , HDMI, DisplayPort, 3.5mm Headset Jack, Micro SD Card Reader
Camera 5 megapixels
Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, bluetooth 4.2, 1 Gbps LAN port
Dimensions 85.5 x 160 x 8.6 - 21.4mm
Weight 334 grams
Battery 3500 mAh
Website www.ockelcomputers.com
7 Score 70
- Pros
- Nicely finished product
- Many connection options
- Compact
- Negatives
- Lack of switch mode
- Less suitable as a separate work computer
The Ockel Sirius A Pro is a mini computer equipped with a 6-inch touchscreen. This means you can actually use the device as a mini-tablet. The screen slopes, so you can lay the device flat on the table, and view the screen from a reasonable angle without a cramped position. So that has clearly been thought through. Thanks to the touchscreen and by putting Windows 10 in tablet mode, you can easily navigate through the large tiles of the start menu and use apps. Tablet mode is preferable with such a small screen, because when you're not using it, most Windows 10 icons are too small to easily touch with your finger. Apps such as Neflix or YouTube are easier to operate on the 6-inch screen.
Hardware
The Ockel Sirius Pro A has an Intel Atom x7-Z8750 processor, which is powerful enough to run the 64-bit version of Windows 10 smoothly. The graphics chip is an Intel HD Graphics 405. The Sirius A Pro we tested has 128 GB eMMC storage and 8 GB DDR3 memory. Windows 10 Pro is pre-installed. There is also a 100 euro cheaper Sirius A available, which has half the memory and storage, and is equipped with Windows 10 Home.
The storage can be expanded via a micro-SD card with a maximum storage capacity of 2 TB. Quite special is that a mini PC of this size also has two video connections (HDMI and DisplayPort) and even has a 1 Gbps LAN port. We also find two USB 3.1 ports and a USB-c port on the back, which you can also use to charge the Ockel, in addition to the standard charger connection.
Both models have passive cooling. The bottom of the Sirius A serves as a heat sink, making the mini computer completely silent. So there are no (energy-consuming) fans, but the disadvantage is that the back can get quite warm. That heat can usually simply flow away, but we notice that the Ockel also gets quite warm when charging with the adapter on the top left.
The speakers are also concealed at the bottom of the Ockel. They generally give a good sound if you have the device on a hard surface, but if you place the Ockel on your lap or a tablecloth, the sound is quickly hidden away. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack if you want better sound.
The Ockel Sirius A Pro has a built-in battery of 3500mAh, which, according to Ockel itself, is good for about 4 hours of use. We got about three hours of fairly intensive use, playing some games and watching Netflix videos. Perfect for a longer train journey or a flight of a few hours.
Working on the Ockel
The question is, of course: how pleasant is it to work in Windows 10 on a relatively small screen that Windows was not really made for. The answer: surprisingly good actually. The screen responds quickly to all touches. The screen is clear and you don't have to hang directly above it to be able to read everything properly. The screen resolution is set to 1920 by 1080, but the scale is set to 175 percent. It has to be, because if it is set to 100 percent, it is impossible to work with: the parts simply become much too small to operate with the fingers.
When working on the Ockel becomes difficult, it is when you have to type a lot of text, for example: the on-screen keyboard of Windows 10 quickly takes up half the screen, leaving you little workspace in Word, for example. Moreover, the on-screen keyboard is not the most innovative part of Windows 10. Fine for an email, typing a URL or a WhatsApp message, but for serious writing tasks it is a bit slow and due to the screen size just a bit on the small side to spend a long time there. to type.
Switch mode
One of the pillars with which Ockel marketed the Sirius A during its crowdfunding campaign was the so-called switch mode. With this, the Ockel Sirius A - when connected to an external monitor - would automatically be 'converted' to a digital keyboard and mouse and a full Windows 10 desktop was displayed on the monitor. Since we also found the switch mode itself a very interesting addition to the device, we were all the more disappointed when it turned out that the software for that switch mode is not yet available on the Sirius A Pro. According to Ockel, this is because some things have changed about the framework in Windows 10 for software development. The company promises to put a beta version of the software online soon.
Of course you can now also just connect a second or third screen to the Ockel, there is an HDMI and DisplayPort connection available. The only drawback is that in that case the Ockel is always seen as a normal monitor and the connected screen as a second screen. When you want to duplicate the screen from the Ockel to the monitor, the resolution and scaling (which is set to 175 percent on the Ockel by default) is taken over by the external monitor. The result is an 'enlarged' Windows 10 interface, which works fine on the 6-inch screen of the Ockel itself, but not on an external monitor.
Windows Hello
With Hello, Window 10 offers a number of additional login options to log in to the operating system. As usual, this can be done with a password, but also with a PIN code, facial recognition or a fingerprint. A fingerprint scanner is integrated on the left side of the Ockel with which you can log in to the device. This option is fully compatible with Hello, but the built-in 5 megapixel front-facing camera is not, preventing you from using facial recognition to log into the Sirius A Pro.
Gaming and video
According to Ockel, the Sirius A Pro can handle 4K video at a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 and 30Hz. Of course we also want to test this in practice. We used a number of test videos from the 4K Samples site, which we first placed on a USB stick and then copied to the Ockel's internal eMMC storage. We used the MPC-BE player to play the videos, which is especially suitable for playing 4K content. Unfortunately, the playback of 4K video is not without fits and starts and we clearly notice that the hardware of the Ockel is not suitable for playing such heavy videos. Playing 'normal' HD videos with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 goes without any problems. This also applies to playing 4K content from Netflix and YouTube.
Playing simple games is also possible, but don't expect high frame rates with 3D games. We played the popular racing game Asphalt from the Windows Store, and it runs fine in a somewhat lower graphics setting. In the highest setting, the game becomes significantly more difficult to play due to the many frame drops.
The nice thing is that the Ockel Sirius A Pro has a built-in gyroscope and accelerometer, so you can control a racing game like Asphalt by moving the Ockel from side to side (steer) or from front to back (brake and acceleration).
Conclusion
The Ockel Sirius A is a well thought out product and beautifully finished. It feels solid and not too heavy. On the road, the Ockel comes into its own as a mobile media player, but - partly because Windows 10 does not work well on a 6-inch screen - it is less suitable as a work computer. The lack of the promised switch mode is a missed opportunity, because this would make the Ockel Sirius A a lot more versatile than it is now.
