Shuttle nc03u7 review in Spanish (full analysis)

We continue to analyze the most interesting Mini PCs, and today it is the turn of the Shuttle NC03U7, a team that joins the Intel Kaby Lake-U technology club and reaches the market with a barebone format, which implies that we will have to acquire the RAM and storage separately. It is an ideal equipment for office and multimedia playback since it has HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces.

Are you interested in purchasing this Mini PC? Do not miss our complete analysis in Spanish, we will see what it can offer us.

First of all, we thank Shuttle for the trust placed in ceding the product to us for analysis.

Shuttle NC03U7 technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

The Shuttle NC03U7 is stored in a neutral cardboard box with black screen printing, leaving the team's brand clearly visible. We did not find the photo of the model printed in this box, although we do see that the side itself has an orange sticker that informs us of the model it brings inside, in addition to complete information on its main technical characteristics and support.

We open the box and find the Shuttle NC03U7 held by two large polyethylene foam corks that provide much higher protection than traditional polystyrene.

Next to it comes a cardboard box with all the documentation and manual for the installation of the necessary hardware, which in this case will be RAM and storage unit. Also we will have the screws for the monitor support and the legs. Finally we have the corresponding cables for connection to the power supply and a metal support to install an SSD storage unit

The manufacturer attaches an external 19V to 65W power supply, something that is more than enough for such equipment with all its components installed.

Regarding its size, we are dealing with a Barebone-type Mini-PC with measures of 142 x 142 x 42 mm. It is certainly not the smallest on the market, but it is an extremely compact device and it is also possible to insert a 2.5 ”mechanical disc and other elements.

Shuttle NC03U7 is made of black plastic both on its sides and on its top and bottom covers. The most visible lid features the brand's logo on a shiny brushed aluminum-style finish, which suits it very well, but without being mistaken for material.

On the front we can find a USB 3.0 type A port, another USB 3.0 type C, an SD card reader with support for SD, SDHC and SDXC cards, something that is greatly appreciated in a device specially designed for office and multimedia playback.

As for control elements, we will have the classic power button, the power indicator LED and the hard disk indicator LED.

If we go to the back of this Shuttle NC03U7 we can see the rest of the connection ports of this equipment. We have the 19 V power connector, an HDMI port and another DisplayPort that will support up to 4K resolutions, two USB 2.0 ports and a very interesting detail such as the RJ45 connector for a wired Ethernet connection. To finish we also find, of course, a connector for headphones and microphone together.

Turning now to the sides, the most notable feature in these areas is the grilles for air flow for internal device ventilation. They are not too big, in the relevant tests we will see if this affects negatively.

On the upper side we find, in addition to the heatsink air outlet, two holes initially covered in case we want to install WiFi antennas on the PC, a very interesting detail, and a hole for the installation of security locks.

If we see its lower side, we have a 9-pin RS232 COM port, as well as the holes to screw the two metal supports to place the device vertically on a table.

At the bottom of this Shuttle NC03U7 we have the only two screws for fixing the covers that when removed will allow us to access its interior, both from the top and infer from the device.

We also have a standard metal VESA mount for installation on desktop monitors. In this way the equipment will be invisible and will be perfectly integrated facilitating its portability.

Components and interior

Seen its exterior and connectivity section we have to access its interior and talk about everything that this Shuttle NC03U7 offers us. Access is quite simple, we will only have to remove the two screws on the back of the visible part and we will be able to remove both the upper cover and the latter (be careful when disengaging the clicks from the upper part). If we buy this PC when we open it, it will look like this:

This Mini PC does not have RAM memory modules or any storage device, so the installed elements that appear in the images are their own acquisition.

In the technical section this Shuttle NC03U7 supports a total of 32 GB of DDR4 RAM at 2133 Mhz in two 16 GB modules with 260-pin SO-DIMM interface. In addition, it will be possible to install them on Dual Channel for better performance. We see that in this area of the equipment we will have one of these connectors.

We can also install a 2.5-inch SATA 3 mechanical hard drive in this part, or if we prefer it can be an SSD drive also under this interface. The total width available for installation will be 15 mm, so practically all units will be able to enter without problems.

If we move a little more to the right, we will see the Realtek WiFi card installed with support for IEEE 802.11b / g / n 150 Mbps connected to an M.2 interface. We believe that it is more than enough for a team of these characteristics. If we add the Ethernet connection capacity to 1Gbps, we will have the circle closed.

If we flip Shuttle NC03U7 we find the rest of expansion slots for this team. the most visible will be the other SO-DIMM slot for RAM. But in addition we also find an M.2 connector for SSD drives that work with SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps), so we must pay attention that a drive with superior characteristics like NVMe will not work here.

And of course, we must talk about its CPU. This team installs the Intel Core i7-7500U CPU with double number and 4 processing threads at 2.7 GHz, reaching 3.5 GHz in turbo mode. The cache is 128 KB L1, 512 KB L2 and 4 MB L3.

This CPU incorporates the Intel HD graphics 620 Graphics Chip capable of supporting resolutions of up to 4K and 60Hz in DisplayPort and 30Hz in HDMI, something very striking and perfect for multimedia equipment, as we see, the ideal will be to use the displayPort interface.

As a finishing touch to its characteristics, we mention that it supports Wake on LAN, TPM 2.0 and VT-x virtualization technology as a mere anecdote

Benchmark and performance tests

TESTING EQUIPMENT
Barebone	Shuttle NC03U7
RAM	2 x SO-DIMM 16 GB DDR4
SATA SSD disk	Kingston xc400 512GB

As we have already said this team does not integrate neither storage units nor memory modules, even so, we have installed the maximum of its possibilities to see its performance.

Let's first look at the performance of the hard disk installed in this computer with CristalDiskMark

The equipment has not been tested with games as normal, but it has been tested with movies at FullHD resolutions and there have been no problems in terms of playback ease with this Intel HD 620.

Temperature analysis

We have used the Aida64 Engineer software to put the equipment under maximum stress and thus check the range of temperatures in which it moves. The ambient temperature is 15 degrees

The temperature at rest and watching a movie is quite similar and is around 55 degrees. When we stress it, quickly and in less than 2 minutes, it reaches temperatures of 90 degrees and higher, so it is not a team that allows constant stress, since we could get upset.

Final words and conclusion about Shuttle NC03U7

This Shuttle NC03U7 is a natural evolution of the brand obtaining better performances than its previous models like the Shuttle NC02U. With an Intel Core i7-7500U processor we are going to make sure that office work is fluid and without waiting. If we add to this the support for 4K resolutions with the HD 620 chip, this equipment is a more than successful option for multimedia playback.

Thanks to its two RAM slots and this CPU, we can reach the figure of 32 GB DDR4 at 2133 MHz, worthy of the best desktop computers.

It also allows us to install high-capacity components such as M.2 SATA Hard Drives, and even 2.5 ”mechanical hard drives, something very interesting, since we can have a truly large storage capacity.

We recommend that you read the guide to the best laptops on the market

The most important thing is to know what we should use this equipment for, because if we want to do photographic design, video editing or obviously play these mini-pc's are not an option. But for the typical tasks of a film enthusiast user and use for office work it is more than successful.

In the aspect that if it loosens and we must keep it in mind is in the refrigeration. Temperatures of 55 degrees at rest are not exactly low and less if they rise in two minutes to almost the physical limit of the CPU. For the work it supports, we won't get to them, but be very careful to subject it to harsh processes for which it is not designed.

Finally also highlight the large number of connections we have, two HDMI and DisplayPort multimedia video outputs and even card reader and USB 3.0 type C. Its recommended price in the market is 533 euros, if we consider that it is A computer that needs a hard drive and memories needs to be installed, it may be a little high, but we must bear in mind that you will get excellent performance and a great capacity for hardware expansion that others do not have.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ VERY HIGH EXTENSION CAPACITY	- VERY HIGH TEMPERATURES
+ PLAYS 4K AT 60 HZ FLUIDLY
+ HIGH CONNECTIVITY, USB 3.0 TYPE C
+ WIFI AND ETHERNET CONNECTION
+ FITTED SIZE AND BUILT-IN MONITOR