The AM02 Pro is the latest mini PC from Kamrui, a Chinese technology company based in Shenzhen. The AM02 Pro is Kamrui’s attempt to integrate productivity and home entertainment into one compact form factor. Equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U CPU, AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 1900 MHz, 16BG of DDR4 3200 MT/s RAM and a 512 NVMe SSD, the AM02 Pro attempts to pack a serious punch despite its small form factor.
Visually, the AM02 Pro is a sleek, minimalistic mini PC. It supports a host of IO on the front and back of the unit with grill-style venting along the sides. The bottom of the MA02 Pro sports an angled bottom plate that hosts cool air intake vents to help cool the PC further. The aluminum casing further aids in the cooling of the system via passive heat removal. While the AM02 Pro does include active fans for cooling, overall the PC is exceptionally quiet even during gaming or media streaming sessions.
The aforementioned IO is plentiful on the AM02 Pro. The front panel plays host to a single USB-C port and headphone/mic 3.5 mm jack. As for the rear panel, this is where the AM02 Pro houses the bulk of its IO. Three USB-A 3.0 and a single USB-A 2.0 offer an impressive amount of options for peripheral connections. A Gigabit LAN port allows for an ethernet connection for those times when Wifi simply isn’t enough. Speaking of, the AM02 Pro comes equipped with WiFi6 and BT5.2(Bluetooth), so you’ll have no issue connecting your wireless and BT-enabled devices to the AM02 Pro.
“The AM02 Pro is Kamrui’s attempt to integrate productivity and home entertainment into one compact form factor.”
With such a small form factor, the latest in Wifi tech (granted, BT 5.2 isn’t quite the latest) helps further reduce the footprint of the AM02 by reducing the amount of cabling needed for functionality. An included VESA wall mount bracket means that the AM02 Pro can easily be mounted to the back of a monitor with ease. Weighing in at under 3 Lbs and measuring 4.5” x 4.5” x 1.5” means the AM02 Pro is the perfect discrete system for your daily PC needs.
With two display outputs in the form of HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort connection, it’s also ideal for both a productivity multimonitor setup as well as a home theatre media center. The aforementioned HDMI 2.0 support means 4K HDR @60Hz is easily achieved for streaming and hosting local video files.
The compact, quiet nature of the AM02 Pro makes it a fairly impressive Mini PC for home use and productivity. The Ryzen 7 5700U is a solid chip for productivity easily handling multiple applications simultaneously. In testing, daily tasks such as email, word processing, photo editing and even audio editing were all managed with ease. While the 16GB (max 64BG) DDR4 RAM is starting to show its age, when paired with the Ryzen 7 it has no problem keeping up with the workload of the average person.
“The AM02 Pro’s inclusion of upgradable components and a discrete GPU gives it a leg up over many other mini PCs in its weight class.”
I appreciate that so many of the components in the AM02 Pro are upgradable. While some of the components would be considered “last gen,” it also means that parts are fairly inexpensive. One could easily pack the Pro to the brim and have a seriously powerful workstation without incurring too much expense.
To further support the speed and efficiency of the AM02 Pro, KAMRUI has included a 512 GB M.2 SSD (up to 2TB supported storage), which handles read-write speeds exceptionally well. For everyday productivity in an office setting, the AM02 Pro is the Clydesdale of workhorse PCs. Throw in its exceptionally small footprint, and it becomes an excellent addition to any productivity workspace.
KAMRUI decided to also include an AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 discrete GPU into the AM02 Pro which gives it a leg up over many other mini PCs in its weight class. Unfortunately, you won’t be running the latest in triple-A titles though. In testing, DOOM Eternal simply wasn’t playable and simply entertained me with a slow-moving slideshow. Diablo 4, while technically playable at 20-25 FPS at the lowest possible settings, wasn’t something I would recommend for any length of time.
However, when testing older but still active titles the results were much better. Diablo 3 plays exceptionally well, while Grim Dawn has no issues on the system. League of Legends and World Of Warcraft (Retail) both ran smooth as silk, easily maintaining 60FPS. Even Fortnite ran consistently, though the graphics settings did need to be scaled back to achieve a solid 45-60 FPS.
As for media playback, the AM02 Pro has no problem producing and maintaining 4K@60Hz playback. Testing with both streamed and local media the Pro took all content in stride producing solid results across the board. Even running a 4K video on my 28-inch 4K display while working on the other screen still produced consistent video without issue.
One thing to consider in all of this, however, is that AMD will not be providing future support for the Vega line of video cards outside of critical security updates. While this means we won’t be seeing any future improvements, the line itself is fairly mature and stable at this point, still making it a solid discrete GPU option for the AM02 Pro.
Another big test for this mini PC was to see how well it handles video editing. With a discrete GPU, it’s always an interesting test. Unfortunately, this was where the AM02 Pro met its match. Despite setting the playback quality to quarter, allocating as much RAM and resources to Davinci as I could and tweaking every other setting, Google suggested the AM02 Pro just couldn’t handle video editing. Even giving videos and transitions time to render in place still didn’t result in a smooth editing experience. Admittedly, it was wishful thinking to believe a discrete PC GPU would be up for the task, but it was worth seeing just how far the AM02 PC could be pushed.
The KAMRUI AM02 Pro Mini PC does exactly as advertised. It’s an excellent workstation PC that could easily double as a media server without the cost or footprint of a full-size PC. The AM02 Pro could even double as a light gaming PC for those who don’t mind older titles. While the lack of long-term driver support for the GPU is something to be cautious of, expandable memory and storage mean you could turn this into a serious little powerhouse of productivity. While you won’t be doing any heavy gaming or video editing for everyday productivity and entertainment, the AM02 Pro is a solid consideration.
