Unveiling the NUC, we have a rather dainty little mini-PC. The actual dimensions for this unit are a mere: 115mm x 112mm x 33mm. NUC is two-tone in its physical appearance, the chassis is metal in its construction while the top uses glossy plastic.

The top-side has a metallic power button with coordinating activity LED and the CCL badge since this unit is supply by them.


Flipping the NUC over onto its reverse, there is a sturdy metal plate which contains the product label with respective serial number and since our product sample is supplied by CCL Computers – we have the Windows 8.1 serial label.

In each corner there are four rubber studs to prevent the unit from slipping on smooth surfaces and within these studs there are four screws which allows access to the internal components.


At the front there are two USB 3.0 ports – one of which (yellow port) allows users to charge devices such as smartphones and tablets by offering greater power. There is also a headphone and microphone jack for audio functionality.


Turning our attention to the rear of the unity there are even more ports to make use of. In order to use NUC it is necessary to marry up the power pack to the 12-19V DC port. Next to this there is a Mini DisplayPort 1.2, a gigabit LAN port for wired network connectivity, another two USB 3.0 ports and Mini HDMI 1.4a port for display/audio purposes.



After detaching the panels on NUC we can inspect the internal hardware of this mini-PC. All of the components are neatly installed onto a miniscule PCB. This unit contains the following:

Processor
Intel Core i3-5010U (2.1 GHz – 3MB L3 Cache)
Memory
8GB 1600MHz SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 MHz
Graphics
Intel HD Graphics 5500
Storage
250GB Crucial MX200 2280SS (M.2 SSD)

Based on this configuration, NUC is ideal to use for a home theatre and for entertainment usage. The M.2 SSD not only boots into the Operating System extremely quick but we can expect transfer rates to exceed 500MB/s for read and write performance.