CompuLab Fitlet 2 Is A Mighty Fine, Low-Power PC Preloaded With Linux Mint

Over the past decade we have looked at many interesting PCs from CompuLab, a vendor capable of delivering Linux-friendly PCs that are originally designed and often catered to meet demanding industrial requirements. The latest Linux PC we have been putting through its paces the past several weeks has been the Fitlet2, which CompuLab describes as being designed "from the ground-up to minimize size and maximize capabilities, durability and thermal performance." After running our plethora of benchmarks on this mini Linux PC, we can say with confidence they have succeeded in their mission.

The CompuLab Fitlet2 is a mini PC at just 112 x 84 x 34 mm (or some models only 25mm tall) while designed to offer capable performance, durable build quality, affordable, and meet today's IoT use-cases. The Fitlet2 is powered by Intel's Apollo Lake Atom hardware. Apollo Lake uses 14nm Goldmont cores derived from Intel's Skylake architecture and the successor to Braswell.

Thanks to the small size of the Fitlet2, this PC can be attached to a VESA mounting bracket and its completely fan-less and enclosed design also makes it suitable for running within an enclosed area/cabinet, inside a vehicle. or other industrial applications where you need a well-built and fanless system. The Fitlet2 has an operating temperature range from -40C to 85C. The Fitlet2 can work with an input voltage ranging from 9V to 36V and can also work on Power-over-Ethernet using an adapter card from CompuLab.

The Fitlet2 comes in several different models using the Atom x7-E3950 / x5-E3930 / Celeron J3455, supports up to 16GB of DDR3L memory, offers M.2 / SATA / eMMC storage options, can drive up to two displays using mini-DP 1.2 and HDMI 1.4, up to four Gigabit Ethernet ports depending upon the configuration, 802.11ac WiFi, optional cellular support, four USB ports (2 x USB 3.0), and a variety of other options. Again, all while fitting within a 112 x 84 x 34 mm all metal chassis.

Plenty more details on the Fitlet2 and the services offered by CompuLab for enterprise/industrial applications are outlined at fit-iot.com.

While the Fitlet2 is very tiny and often the smallest PCs are the most difficult to assemble/disassemble, it's still designed to offer access to the storage/RAM/expansion. I've taken apart the original Fitlet before and it's certainly doable although not the quickest or easiest to handle.