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Mini PC's

azgreg

Chicks dig the long ball
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Anybody have any experience with mini PC's like the ASUS Chromebox, ASUS PN60, Beelink, etc?

I have the need for a PC that only has to cruise the net, play media from Youtube, Facebook, and perform small personal business on. I don't want a bulky PC either.

maxresdefault.jpg
 
Anybody have any experience with mini PC's like the ASUS Chromebox, ASUS PN60, Beelink, etc?

I have the need for a PC that only has to cruise the net, play media from Youtube, Facebook, and perform small personal business on. I don't want a bulky PC either.

maxresdefault.jpg
One of those will do fine for your need case. At least 4 physical cores and 8gb of ram and you're golden. You don't need a discrete GPU unless you plan on playing games.
 
Anybody have any experience with mini PC's like the ASUS Chromebox, ASUS PN60, Beelink, etc?

I have the need for a PC that only has to cruise the net, play media from Youtube, Facebook, and perform small personal business on. I don't want a bulky PC either.

maxresdefault.jpg
I don't have one, but I like to read about them...especially after I bought a Win10 tablet. Here's a good source for information: https://liliputing.com/tag/mini-pc
 
Anybody have any experience with mini PC's like the ASUS Chromebox, ASUS PN60, Beelink, etc?

I have the need for a PC that only has to cruise the net, play media from Youtube, Facebook, and perform small personal business on. I don't want a bulky PC either.

maxresdefault.jpg


I've looked at these but for the cost, I've stuck to used all in one computers... Do an OS reset and remove as much bloatware as possible and it's usually more than sufficient.
 
I'm leaning towards the Beelink U57.



Model: Beelink U57


  • Processor: Intel core i5-5257U (2.70 GHz-3.10 GHz)
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bits pre-installed
  • RAM: 8GB DDR3L
  • Disk: 256GB SSD(Supports extended)
  • Processor Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6100
  • Thermal Design Power (TDP): 28W
  • Ethernet: 1000Mbps LAN
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11/b/g/n/ac, 2.4+5.8G Antenna: Built-in antenna for WiFi
  • Bluetooth: 4.2
  • Expand Memory: SD card: Micro SD Card 128GB SSD:M.2(NGFF) 2280 or 2242 SSD, up to 500GB - 1TB HDD: up to 2TB

Ports:


  • 2* HDMI Port
  • 1* Type-C Port
  • 2* USB 3.0 Port
  • 2* USB 2.0 Port
  • 1* RJ45 Port
  • 1* Audio Jack (HP&MIC)
  • 1* micro SD Card slot
 
Not a bad deal for one with an i5. A bit older model but will be quite capable at your specified tasks for some time.
 
I'm leaning towards the Beelink U57.



Model: Beelink U57


  • Processor: Intel core i5-5257U (2.70 GHz-3.10 GHz)
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bits pre-installed
  • RAM: 8GB DDR3L
  • Disk: 256GB SSD(Supports extended)
  • Processor Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6100
  • Thermal Design Power (TDP): 28W
  • Ethernet: 1000Mbps LAN
  • WiFi: IEEE 802.11/b/g/n/ac, 2.4+5.8G Antenna: Built-in antenna for WiFi
  • Bluetooth: 4.2
  • Expand Memory: SD card: Micro SD Card 128GB SSD:M.2(NGFF) 2280 or 2242 SSD, up to 500GB - 1TB HDD: up to 2TB

Ports:


  • 2* HDMI Port
  • 1* Type-C Port
  • 2* USB 3.0 Port
  • 2* USB 2.0 Port
  • 1* RJ45 Port
  • 1* Audio Jack (HP&MIC)
  • 1* micro SD Card slot

I would stay away from that big time. It is a 5 year old processor with only 2 cores and 4 threads. It is WAY expensive for what you are getting.

Problem is that in that price range, you will get older chips, which is not a problem per say.. but a 5 year old chip is a problem.

What I would suggest is maybe try finding a used laptop and use that instead. It can be set up easily to work as a media pc and has a screen already.

But if you want a mini pc... Intel Nuc for the win. All you have to add to this is a NvME drive and you are golden. It has a 2 year old chip (4 cores, 8 threads), and 16 GB ram. A 500 GB NvME costs around 60 bucks. There are other mainstream brands from ASUS and Lenovo that make similar systems.

Basically look at what chip is in the mini pc.. so an Intel i5-8XXX is from 2 years ago.. 9XXX is last years and so on. Anything from 7XXX and onwards is good enough.
 
I would stay away from that big time. It is a 5 year old processor with only 2 cores and 4 threads. It is WAY expensive for what you are getting.

Problem is that in that price range, you will get older chips, which is not a problem per say.. but a 5 year old chip is a problem.

What I would suggest is maybe try finding a used laptop and use that instead. It can be set up easily to work as a media pc and has a screen already.

But if you want a mini pc... Intel Nuc for the win. All you have to add to this is a NvME drive and you are golden. It has a 2 year old chip (4 cores, 8 threads), and 16 GB ram. A 500 GB NvME costs around 60 bucks. There are other mainstream brands from ASUS and Lenovo that make similar systems.

Basically look at what chip is in the mini pc.. so an Intel i5-8XXX is from 2 years ago.. 9XXX is last years and so on. Anything from 7XXX and onwards is good enough.

As with most computers, there is a premium for the size. I think the price might be fair for a PC that size that is capable of running Windows 10. I don't think the 2 cores will be a limitation if it is for basic surfing and streaming tasks.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, though, only because you pay a premium for the size when the use case for such a small device is probably not really there.

For that reason I would lean more towards a Chromebox if that form factor is what you need. It makes more sense because it is an OS built for the use case (browsing and streaming), and it runs fine on hardware that Windows 10 would struggle on.
 
Anybody have any experience with mini PC's like the ASUS Chromebox, ASUS PN60, Beelink, etc?

I have the need for a PC that only has to cruise the net, play media from Youtube, Facebook, and perform small personal business on. I don't want a bulky PC either.

maxresdefault.jpg
I am a little late to the party, but what you want really boils down to what operating system you want and what you want to pay.

Windows and linux on intel machines are available, there is chrome also. The most common mini computer is the rasperry pi which is arm not intel and runs linux mostly, but can also run bsd, windows in a limited form though not useful for anything but developement, and also can run certain android systems.

I have a rasperry pi 3 with 1 gb of ram I use just for youtube and streaming, it is decent for that task, or for word processing and fairly cheap, however if you are someone who wants tp branch out to more things the rasperry pi is bad unless you are a genius in coding. Currently they offer up to 8 gb of ram as well.

For a while there were windows pc sticks offered in 1-8 gb ram that plugged into and was powered by the hdmi port, they were slow but had full windows, and just enough usb ports to plug a keyboard and mouse in. They were mostly intented for multimedia and social media, and were not much bigger than a usb stick, problem is not too long ago most left the market and the ones sticking around have gone very high in price, two years ago I could have easily found hdmi stick pc with 2 gb ram for 70 ,bucks, now many want 150-400 bucsks.
 
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