Review: Shuttle DS57U PC

A barebones? Is that a gadget? If you would look very black and white then no. But having a small – yet fairly full-fledged – PC in the living room can be useful. Barebones are not new either. But how does such a barebone function in daily use? Can you use it as a media center and play a bit (casually) on it?

Shuttle DS57U: first an introduction

Shuttle’s DS57U is a fanless – heat-pipe cooled – slim PC measuring 20 x 16.5 x 3.95 cm (LxWxH). It is possible to place the barebone on a stand or to fix it behind a monitor or TV using a VESA mount. The DS57U is powered by an Intel Celeron 3205u processor and has room for up to 8GB SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM.

What did I want to test? The possibilities of the DS57U are fairly diverse, a number of which are specifically aimed at the application at a company. I myself have had a media center for a long time which was replaced by the OUYA. The switch to the OUYA was a deception for me so I was very curious how the DS57U would function as a media center but also to what extent you can play games on it?

Test system specifications:

• Shuttle DS57U with Intel Celeron 3205u 1.5Ghz Dual-core processor and 4GB SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM;
• Samsung UE40D6200 3D LED Smart TV;
• Synology DS213 NAS;
• OUYA Bluetooth Controller;
• D-Link Bluetooth Dongle (USB 2.0);
• Bluetooth keyboard (Logitech K480) and mouse (Motorola).

Installation and first impression Shuttle DS57U

The DS57U comes with an incredibly neat manual on how to put the device into use. Assembling the stand, installing the hard drive and memory is a piece of cake. To install an operating system, you will have to use a USB stick or hard drive. The installation and installation of the programs went smoothly so that we could quickly start testing the system.

Media Center & Gaming

I myself am a huge fan of films, series and music, so the barebone must be able to handle this well. A downside to the DS57U – in my opinion – is that there is no support for a digital audio output. This is taken care of by running the audio through the HDMI connection. Unfortunately for me this means leaving the TV on when I want to listen to music. Not really a big minus but worth mentioning.

Playback of films/series: I use Kodi (formerly XBMC) for playing films and series, and on a Full-HD television it is the intention that films look as good and sleek as possible. If a processor – combined with the working memory – is not powerful enough, there is a chance that a movie in Full HD quality will stutter. This is not the case with the DS57U. The processor is fast enough to smoothly conjure up the images on your screen.

Playing games: It is of course possible to play games such as Freecell, Minesweeper or Solitaire on the DS57U, but whether you specifically need a large screen for that is another matter. I looked more into the more “heavier games” using the Big Picture Mode available in Steam. Playing games is indeed possible, but for this the settings have to be set a lot lower than with a PC with a separate video card. If you want to play serious games, you’re better off with the Shield from Nvidia . Even as a media center, that’s a nice solution.

Conclusion

The Shuttle DS57U is a versatile barebone that can be used for multiple purposes. You can use it as a media center, among other things. The Shuttle DS57U is quiet due to the fan-less cooling and has sufficient computing power to perform various tasks smoothly. High-quality video playback is smooth and other tasks such as browsing, editing and creating documents and editing photos are fine. As a nice extra, the Shuttle DS57U is suitable for the upgrade to Windows 10.