First, let's address the elephant in the room. Yes, the DS77U3 is a very versatile barebone, designed for home and professional use. That means no planned obsolescence, industrial-grade components, suited for 24/7 usage, but also two COM ports on the front panel.
Thankfully, Shuttle provides two dust covers, keeping aesthetics clean. The DS77U3 is a very small PC (200 x 165 x 39.5 mm). It can be easily hidden and it's also VESA-mountable. Note that the DS77U3 can be installed horizontally when ambient temperature is below 35°C. We strongly encourage the use of the included feet though, creating an effective chimney effect and cooling not just the CPU but the motherboard, the memory and storage too.
There are only two screws keeping you from the inside. Assembling and upgrading the DS77U3 is a child's play.
The DS77U3 features two DDR4 (2133Mhz) SODIMM slots (16GB per DIMM, 32GB max), one M.2 2280 socket, and one 2.5" bay.
The second M.2 (2230) socket is occupied by a Realtek RTL8188EE 802.11 b/g/n wireless network module.
Connectivity is pretty impressive. Actually, it's perfect. The 4K-ready DS77U3 features six USB ports, a SD card reader, a DisplayPort, two HDMI ports, and two Intel Gigabit LAN ports.
A clear (and colorful) quick start guide is also included.
The DS77U3 is extremely efficient. According to Shuttle, when it's equipped with a 2.5” SSD drive, the system consumes under 8W in idle mode. Running five days a week for eight hours a day, the annual consumption would be less than 17kWh which would mean less than 5 euros on the power bill.
We tried the latest Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, and everything works just fine. We're also very pleased temperature-wise: idling in the low 40s and never exceeding the mid-60s, without any fan. Intel did a great job with their Kaby Lake U-series. The i3-7100U (3865 CPU Mark) is surprisingly snappy. We're talking (family) desktop replacement here.
