HIGOLEPC Mini PC Win 11 PRO, Celeron J4125 Mini Computer, 8GB DDR4 128GB EMMC Mini Desktop Computer with IPS Screen, WiFi 5.0, BT5.2, Gigabit Ethernet

The media could not be loaded. First off get yourself a usb keyboard, a person can only take so much of the virtual keyboard on a desktop OS. The device is pretty sturdy even though it's thin metal. The back is a little Sharp from where the backplate sits inwards around the edges. The goodix touchscreen is inaccurate at times but has a pretty decent resolution, drawing a diagonal line is jagged with tiny zigzags. Out of the box the Memsic MXC6655 accelerometer showed up in Device Manager but never rotated the screen even after toggling rotation lock.Turning it on the screen appears to be vertical, and that carries over to the desktop so you might need to rotate the screen in desktop options once it's started up. I didn't see nor did Suricata state that any malicious network connections were going on so they might of removed the alleged virus. The copy of windows was activated properly with an OEM key despite other reviews saying it wasn't. The device also gets HOT under Windows.Disassembly shows that there are through hole ports on the motherboard for a raw DC power supply right next to the bespoke 12v usb-c charging port. This probably is for doing lab testing, it would be entirely possible to replace the usb-c connector with a barrel jack and solder it directly through those ports eliminating any charging accidents. There is also an smd ribbon clamp for a little cooling fan as well as mounts for an internal speaker and microphone input. I'm guessing it would be possible to aslo wire up an internal fan to keep the device cool. The battery is right up against the backplate seperating the heatsink from the case so the heat is just from the ambient temperature and li-po battery combined. No temperature is dissipated directly to the case.For other people wanting to put Linux on this here was my process. Windows 11 was just too bloated and slow to be ran on this device so I backed up the embedded Win11 OEM cd key and formatted to KDE Fedora Linux 39. Win11 used around 8.5% cpu time on average running idle services, Fedora currently uses 0.6% leaving plenty of overhead for other tasks. There are options in the American Megatrends bios(uefi) to switch the Southbridge over to Linux mode, this will crash the BIOS locking the machine requiring you to pull the battery out to reset. Just keep the bios setting in Windows mode but install Linux anyway, it will do fine. Fedora media writer, Rufus, or Linux's dd command should work. Insert the USB stick/CD drive and install Fedora following the instructions. Fedora scales the dpi up making it impossible to see anything so a second hdmi screen or ssh connection is needed to fix the desktop on the 1st boot, after that it's perfectly usable. Older linux kernel versions a few back use an unstable realtek network driver so the wi-fi and lan might not work on that version but the latest on Fedora 39 works fairly well. Was able to run Half-Life 1999 at full speed(in video), the device gets pretty hot but not nearly as hot as idling on Windows 11 desktop.

(tl;dr at bottom)Primarily, this is running on the J1425 processor on resource-hungry Win11, so it's gonna be an old, slow dog with the initial updates and after that, still don't expect a lot of speed. This sucker also got HOT HOT HOT running all the updates and I think it started to thermally throttle when it was updating because it took a couple hours to get the whole OS updated. It never shut off though so I'm guessing the throttling is to keep that from happening with this newer edition. The unit cooled down pretty quickly after going back to idling. The touch screen can be pretty finicky as I'm just using the default display size.This unit still uses the 12v USB-C connector for power. Be sure to mark your power adapter so you don't accidently fry any of your other dumb USC-C devices.A lot of people are interested in installing linux on the metal/dual-booting, and I'm personally adverse to that. It appears with lack of driver support, some distros have it good (Ubuntu) while others seem to be suffering (Debian.) Virtual boxes seem to be the go-to from the looks of it.I had to manually install the Microsoft 2019C++ Redistributable 32bit package before I could get VirtualBox running, but I just threw the GUI Kali 32bit (x64) iso in it and it works, shockingly enough! Before you can get things running, you need an external keyboard since you can't interact with the CLI/GUI without one first, the touchscreen doesn't pull up the keyboard. After the installation, I found out that the Wifi is fine out of the box, the default display ratio sucks, and the CLI is a PitA to work with and sluggish since the J1425 is an oldie now.I had to modify a fair amount of the settings to make this functional as a portable Kali machine. My settings are:DISPLAY:-800x600 4:3 resolution 1.3x scaleThis helps keep the Kali display stay in the entire window. The native display default (1200x800) is too much and requires scrolling through the entire display to see everything. A major nuisance. The 800x600 also allows the virtual keyboard to stay within the display too since if you dock the virtual keyboard to the bottom of the screen, you won't see it in the default 1200x800 displaying, and if you dock the keyboard to the top, it'll cover your CLI. My pic has the best setup I've found so farONBOARD SETTINGS (keyboard):-General tab:-- ✅ Auto-show when editing text-Window tab:-- ✅ Dock to screen edge (bottom)-Layout tab:--SmallThese are the baseline settings I applied for the virtual keyboard. It's been working well as can be seen in the attached photos.ravs.b trojan (virus)This is an oldschool hash from 2011 that changes a few registries, the winlogon and the Windows File Protection (WFP). Trojans use this to obfuscate any changes to critical windows files by changing the SFDisable flag to "2" so Windows won't pick it up.Now, I'm *guessing* that this is a false positive because people do go into these registries and change the SFCDisable so custom drivers can be loaded up for whatever lower kernel access people want or need. The Gole1 Pro has the flag set to "4" and uses a custom driver to have the keyboard automatically pop up which is why you see the "Core isolation" as off in Windows Defender (see pic.) If you turn this on, the keyboard no longer pops up because the popup is now disabled. It's janky code to get a custom driver working for the Gole1 Pro, but I can see why that is the case. This is also why you won't see the keyboard popup in a virtualbox/dualboot environment.HIGOLE:Guys, if you can make your pocket PC with the option to have a loaded Ubuntu/Kali/Debian operating system, these things will sell like hotcakes. Please consider this since you did look at all of the suggestions for the older GOLE1 Pro and fixed them 🙏Final thoughts/tl;dr:It's a neat object but it's not a powerhouse. Linux is spotty but you can make it work. I doubt this will last a long time but I have zero complaints for a pocket Kali Linux running ~250 USD with the coupon.

I’ve had one of the Higole Mini-PCs for almost a year now, so it’s seen some use. It’s one of the best performing SBC’s that I’ve seen. I use it for Software Defined Radio and it never falters. I does generate some heat when taxing the processor but I’ve never had it fail.As far as durability, I was surprised the amount of abuse it’s handled these past 11months. I drop it constantly. And it still works with an excellent picture and touch functionality. I dropped it recently and thought I damaged the screen. I contacted the company to get info on a replacement display. They do stock everything from the display to the pcb and at really reasonable prices. Luckily, as I took apart the case, I found the display issue was an electrical connection that was jarred out of alignment. I repositioned it, and works like new.I’ve tried it as a dual boot with a Linux Distro, and was flawless . I run VM ware also for Linux and it works great. If you must have a large display from time to time, use the HDMI and fun it on a flat screen.When , I learned of their next release which is a 16GB version, it instantly went on my list of tech to buy this year. Don’t get me wrong, it works fine at 8GB of RAM, the extra RAM will come in handy for multitasking or applications with a lot of throughput. Honestly, it’s a darker case and looks cool and I just want it. -Jason Burchell, Southern California, USA