Systems

ECS Elite Group Liva Q2 Series Mini-PC Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The ESC Liva Q2 did not have an exact retail price at the time of writing. Based on similar models though we would anticipate this to cost between £150-£180. For that price, in terms of what you get in return, this could be a fantastic option for many. Particularly those who may not have a smart TV and want a convenient way to watch videos online. In addition, for its portability, businesses and company representatives would find this highly useful.

Overview

At this point, you have to fully appreciate exactly what the Liva Q2 is. It’s not a gaming PC and it never once pretends that it is. This system is more designed to provide an inexpensive gateway to having a media center that you can also fully use as you would any other office PC.

Perfect for the Home Office

In terms of office multitasking, the Liva Q2 is surprisingly good. While testing it out, I had various Edge browsers open, an office program and a few other things here and there. Never once did it look like it was struggling to keep up with the work load. If you are, therefore, a home user who’s looking for a compact system to write documents or even edit images, this could prove to be surprisingly powerful based on its small size!

How is it with editing software?

The short answer is, it depends on what you plan to do. If you’re going to use Photoshop or any other image software, then you’ll find this is more than up to the task. With minimal load times, the Liva Q2 proved to be surprisingly good at it! In terms of video editing though? This system simply doesn’t have the graphical oomph to make it work well let alone the processing power to get a high-quality video out in a reasonable time frame.

Streaming and Video!

The Liva Q2 proved to be pretty good at Streaming videos. A lower quality may be necessary to keep things running smoothly and Kodi and Plex users might find things a little slow, but if you’re already using an Amazon product for this then you’ll probably feel this is much better. In addition, with the Windows operating system, you’ll have no problems with compatibility of the functionality of playing videos stored on the hard drive or the SD card. If this is your main purpose of purchase though, go for the 64GB option.

The Liva Q2 is also compatible with many universal remote controls so using it with your TV could actually be the best functionality!

Can it Play Games?

In a word, no. Then again, that depends on your definition of ‘games’. While it wouldn’t run any of our standard gaming tests, we found that the system was relatively happy running games such as Minecraft. Albeit in a rather low resolution. While this might be able to handle more basic games, this doesn’t run Fortnite!

Portability

The Liva Q2 is small. Really small. The actual dimensions are roughly 10cm x 10cm x 5cm. In a more ‘real-world’ comparison, it’s about the same size as an Amazon Echo Dot. It is also relatively lightweight and, in comparative terms again, about the same as a TV remote control. It’s remarkable just how much bang has been put into such a small package!

Pros