Mini PC recommendations
March 17, 2025 1:29 PM Subscribe
Can you recommend a win11 mini PC for basic email/web browsing under $200?
I'm leaning towards a mini-PC rather than a desktop or chromebook for power consumption reasons since in the future it might be used as a NAS. The actual size is not really a concern.
Some of the "offbrand" units seem to have questionable reviews as far as security concerns (in the BIOS). Is that an issue if buying online (e.g. Amazon)?
Open to other suggestions.
I'm leaning towards a mini-PC rather than a desktop or chromebook for power consumption reasons since in the future it might be used as a NAS. The actual size is not really a concern.
Some of the "offbrand" units seem to have questionable reviews as far as security concerns (in the BIOS). Is that an issue if buying online (e.g. Amazon)?
Open to other suggestions.
Maybe consider refurb SFF corporate PCs. I'm seeing Dell/Lenovo/HP SFF machines in your price range with i5-8400T, 16GB DDR4, and 256GB SSD. I don't think you want to go older than 8th gen Intel Core for Win11
posted by scruss at 2:36 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 2:36 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
I've been using a Beelink Mini-S (essentially the same model that supercres mentioned?) for email/browsing/high quality voice-over work for about 5 months now, and I have no complaints. Of course I had to buy keyboard/mouse/monitor separately, so you'd need to factor that in to your budget if you don't already have them left over from another PC. A USB hub might also be useful.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:45 PM on March 17
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:45 PM on March 17
I just bought this one and it boggles my mind how small and how fast it is. Seriously, it's faster than my 6 month old higher end laptop.
Edit to add, seriously that's not a photoshop. It's really that tiny.
FYI that's an Amazon link, but I cleaned it of the tracking junk.
posted by chasles at 4:06 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Edit to add, seriously that's not a photoshop. It's really that tiny.
FYI that's an Amazon link, but I cleaned it of the tracking junk.
posted by chasles at 4:06 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I'm on a TRIGKEY and it's been fine. I was having some bluescreen issues (usually when playing youtube videos) in Win11 and got irritated for various reasons and wiped and installed Win10 and the bluescreening went away, a fresh reinstall of 11 probably would have done the same.
It is slightly more powerful than both my work laptops, and I paid $230 in Nov 2023 (it looks like the newest version of their Ryzen 7 Mini PC 8 Core is $319 right now, you could step down on chip just don't give up too much RAM).
posted by Lyn Never at 4:22 PM on March 17
It is slightly more powerful than both my work laptops, and I paid $230 in Nov 2023 (it looks like the newest version of their Ryzen 7 Mini PC 8 Core is $319 right now, you could step down on chip just don't give up too much RAM).
posted by Lyn Never at 4:22 PM on March 17
If it will have future use as a NAS, you might go for a slightly larger machine that can hold one or more nvme drives for redundancy as a NAS
posted by nickggully at 4:37 PM on March 17
posted by nickggully at 4:37 PM on March 17
Also using a Beelink (EQ12) for docker/Plex duties with external storage and it works great, especially for the price.
posted by hankscorpio83 at 5:24 PM on March 17
posted by hankscorpio83 at 5:24 PM on March 17
Dang, these things are ridiculously small and cheap.
What's the best you can get for, say, $100?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:09 PM on March 17
What's the best you can get for, say, $100?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:09 PM on March 17
What's the best you can get for, say, $100?
I don't know if it's the best, but my kids play Minecraft on an HP EliteDesk that's maybe 6 years old. These are in the class of computers scruss mentioned above. They're abundant on eBay and can be had for less than $100 depending on configuration. Not sure if they can do Windows 11.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:17 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
I don't know if it's the best, but my kids play Minecraft on an HP EliteDesk that's maybe 6 years old. These are in the class of computers scruss mentioned above. They're abundant on eBay and can be had for less than $100 depending on configuration. Not sure if they can do Windows 11.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:17 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
I'd expect a lot of mini-PCs to fail on at least two (related) points that a dedicated NAS would provide: disk redundancy and hot-swap capability. Sure, you can build a NAS with one disk, and accept that you have to shut it down and open the case to swap that disk when it develops errors or fails, but that negates a number of advantages that people install a NAS for. The most obvious way around this would be to add external storage with two (or more) drives, but then you're looking at two devices drawing power.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:51 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
posted by Stoneshop at 12:51 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Hey I bought the same machine as chasles, still waiting for it to arrive!
From my cursory research: For video-related purposes, you want an Intel CPU, because it has a special trick to encode/decode video faster (Intel Quick Sync). If video is not your main concern, then other CPUs might be better.
posted by gakiko at 4:40 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
From my cursory research: For video-related purposes, you want an Intel CPU, because it has a special trick to encode/decode video faster (Intel Quick Sync). If video is not your main concern, then other CPUs might be better.
posted by gakiko at 4:40 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
I have a bunch of these. A few notes.
- There are a couple of actually good brands. These are Minisforum, Beelink, and GMKtek. (Some other bigger brands make things in this line too - MSI and ASUS specifically - but they don't seem to have the same market penetration or choices.) These brands put out a pretty solid machine, usually aren't too buggy, and typically have some name-brand components in them (Crucial RAM, Kingston SSDs, stuff like that - maybe not the best stuff they offer, but an actual brand). These folks are usually also doing actual engineering stuff - Minisforum makes the awesome MS-01; GMKtek was first out with the really tiny 2" square PCs, etc. - and they tend to review pretty well.
- There's a bunch of other brands; your Trigkeys, Kamrui, Bmax, Peladn, Bosgame, AOOSTAR, etc. These tend to be cheaper and have off-brand RAM/storage in them. It's probably fine, though. (Some of these I'm pretty sure are just names slapped on a case. I have a PELADN and an AceMagician Ryzen 7 machine and I'm pretty sure they have the exact same logic board in them.)
- There are a few to avoid, or at least be very suspect about. One I had was a LETSUNG brand. This is notably the only one I've had that's outright failed on me - the power brick it shipped with was crap and broke, and the board was unbootably buggy. (Somehow it even had a 100BaseTX NIC in it. I didn't know they made those in PCI-Express.) So maybe skip that brand if you see it.
AceMagician is the other one to be real suspect about. (By extension, I would also look a bit askance at Kamuri - I'm not 100% sure but they seemed to be the same company?) About a year ago, they were caught shipping PCs with spyware on them. They say they've fixed this but for a lot of people that can be a "never again" sort of trust breakage. You can mitigate this by just not using the software that comes with the device - put your own Windows/etc. on it - or by getting a barebones model that has no storage or RAM. However, the Ryzen 7 one I have of theirs, which is recent and has my own SSD in it, has been really buggy due to BIOS errors; they have someone that posts stuff to a mini PC forum and I was able to get an updated BIOS from there that fixed it, but (IMHO) that also was a bit.. untrustworthy too.
The Minisforum and Beelink devices I've got are all solid. I have some Bosgame ones too that I'm also pretty happy with.
In terms of capabilities: in the $200-$300 price range you have a lot of options and you'll really need to do some checking up on what it is you really want to do and maybe keep TechPowerup loaded to compare/contrast CPUs. You'll see everything from Intel N5095s (old Celerons) to N150s (newer, better Celerons) to Ryzen 4800s (good but older AMD) and beyond. CPU model names for these things tend to be clear as mud; you may be looking at a Ryzen 5800U but comparing to a Ryzen 7520 - guess what, the 7520 is older tech. (Intel is not much better in this regard.)
But: if you want to use the thing as a NAS later on, try to get one with:
- More than 1 M.2 SSD port and/or a SATA hookup - a lot of them do this nowadays, though the SATA is falling out of fashion
- At least 10GB USB 3 ports.
- I'd also highly recommend getting one with at least one 2.5Gb Ethernet port too - again, a lot of them have this now even, and it's not too hard to find ones with 2 2.5GbE ports.
- Intel may be a better choice depending on what you're cross-comparing because their GPUs have good media encoding engines, which you can offload things to for things like Plex or Jellyfin. (But, an N150 is a poor choice when the other machine over is a Ryzen 5700.)
Even better is if you can find one that does faster USB 3, or has USB 4/Thunderbolt ports on them. (These are all physically USB-C.) Or, Oculink (which will very much not be USB-C). These are your ticket to high-speed connectivity to other devices, like disk boxes and stuff like that, or future expandability. Oculink is typically used for adding external, discrete GPUs to your mini PC, for instance. (Remember that most of these have laptop-style CPUs in them.) These features will jump your price up a good bit but will make it more future-proof.
posted by mrg at 7:15 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
- There are a couple of actually good brands. These are Minisforum, Beelink, and GMKtek. (Some other bigger brands make things in this line too - MSI and ASUS specifically - but they don't seem to have the same market penetration or choices.) These brands put out a pretty solid machine, usually aren't too buggy, and typically have some name-brand components in them (Crucial RAM, Kingston SSDs, stuff like that - maybe not the best stuff they offer, but an actual brand). These folks are usually also doing actual engineering stuff - Minisforum makes the awesome MS-01; GMKtek was first out with the really tiny 2" square PCs, etc. - and they tend to review pretty well.
- There's a bunch of other brands; your Trigkeys, Kamrui, Bmax, Peladn, Bosgame, AOOSTAR, etc. These tend to be cheaper and have off-brand RAM/storage in them. It's probably fine, though. (Some of these I'm pretty sure are just names slapped on a case. I have a PELADN and an AceMagician Ryzen 7 machine and I'm pretty sure they have the exact same logic board in them.)
- There are a few to avoid, or at least be very suspect about. One I had was a LETSUNG brand. This is notably the only one I've had that's outright failed on me - the power brick it shipped with was crap and broke, and the board was unbootably buggy. (Somehow it even had a 100BaseTX NIC in it. I didn't know they made those in PCI-Express.) So maybe skip that brand if you see it.
AceMagician is the other one to be real suspect about. (By extension, I would also look a bit askance at Kamuri - I'm not 100% sure but they seemed to be the same company?) About a year ago, they were caught shipping PCs with spyware on them. They say they've fixed this but for a lot of people that can be a "never again" sort of trust breakage. You can mitigate this by just not using the software that comes with the device - put your own Windows/etc. on it - or by getting a barebones model that has no storage or RAM. However, the Ryzen 7 one I have of theirs, which is recent and has my own SSD in it, has been really buggy due to BIOS errors; they have someone that posts stuff to a mini PC forum and I was able to get an updated BIOS from there that fixed it, but (IMHO) that also was a bit.. untrustworthy too.
The Minisforum and Beelink devices I've got are all solid. I have some Bosgame ones too that I'm also pretty happy with.
In terms of capabilities: in the $200-$300 price range you have a lot of options and you'll really need to do some checking up on what it is you really want to do and maybe keep TechPowerup loaded to compare/contrast CPUs. You'll see everything from Intel N5095s (old Celerons) to N150s (newer, better Celerons) to Ryzen 4800s (good but older AMD) and beyond. CPU model names for these things tend to be clear as mud; you may be looking at a Ryzen 5800U but comparing to a Ryzen 7520 - guess what, the 7520 is older tech. (Intel is not much better in this regard.)
But: if you want to use the thing as a NAS later on, try to get one with:
- More than 1 M.2 SSD port and/or a SATA hookup - a lot of them do this nowadays, though the SATA is falling out of fashion
- At least 10GB USB 3 ports.
- I'd also highly recommend getting one with at least one 2.5Gb Ethernet port too - again, a lot of them have this now even, and it's not too hard to find ones with 2 2.5GbE ports.
- Intel may be a better choice depending on what you're cross-comparing because their GPUs have good media encoding engines, which you can offload things to for things like Plex or Jellyfin. (But, an N150 is a poor choice when the other machine over is a Ryzen 5700.)
Even better is if you can find one that does faster USB 3, or has USB 4/Thunderbolt ports on them. (These are all physically USB-C.) Or, Oculink (which will very much not be USB-C). These are your ticket to high-speed connectivity to other devices, like disk boxes and stuff like that, or future expandability. Oculink is typically used for adding external, discrete GPUs to your mini PC, for instance. (Remember that most of these have laptop-style CPUs in them.) These features will jump your price up a good bit but will make it more future-proof.
posted by mrg at 7:15 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Nth-ing the GMTek machines. I have one I tossed Ubuntu on for Docker duty and running Pi-Hole and it's great.
There's also a site indexing eBay prices that let's you filter on what you're looking for. They are shockingly inexpensive.
posted by youknowwhatpart at 7:24 AM on March 19
There's also a site indexing eBay prices that let's you filter on what you're looking for. They are shockingly inexpensive.
posted by youknowwhatpart at 7:24 AM on March 19
Also a MinisForum fan for higher quality machine, and Beelink for very cheap. I believe the current hotness for $200 is an N150 processor with 16GB or RAM. They even come with a Windows license that appears legitimate in the US.
The SSDs in these cheap machines are not great, so consider budgeting to replace that too. If not, have a plan for what to do if it fails.
posted by Nelson at 11:16 AM on March 19
The SSDs in these cheap machines are not great, so consider budgeting to replace that too. If not, have a plan for what to do if it fails.
posted by Nelson at 11:16 AM on March 19
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posted by supercres at 1:54 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]