It's been a while since I have looked at a tiny thin client style PC, so I found these two on Amazon... were they worth it? You can check them out at the links below.
BMAX B1 - amzn.to/49JQwAI
BOSGAME - amzn.to/3Tvs0xD
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The audience for these things is people running small home servers that are tired of messing with Raspberry Pis.
Exactly my case, haha. And indeed it worked great for that.
I use one for a LINUX system to control a HackRF Software Defined Radio. Actually works well. but it's definitely not a gaming pc.
I think that the bmax might struggle with even the smallest of home servers, maybe just a pihole and not much else. With pi5s being similarly priced though it might be a decent option.
And using them to watch Twitch on your TV where you want to run adblocking. But, more home servers than that, yes.
My old Call Center job had mini pc's They are really good for basic office work.
I bought a mini PC with a Ryzen 5 5500u for 199 USD. It converts the Hall Giant TV into a fully fledged PC, these mini PCs are awesome they make any TV a fully fledged PC, just add a wireless USB mouse/keyboard and done-.
now that's a decent system. I wouldn't waste my money on intel for one of these. The radeon IGP makes a huge difference.
Been debating on getting one of these for astrophotography. The rpi3 that runs my mount is "ok" but it's nothing to write home about.
yeah the amd based mini's are where its at, my beelink ser5 even came dual channel and m.2 wifi 6
And memory and SSD are included in the 199 USD?
I bought an intel 1340p system for a little over 200 USD. It was a steal
I use a CNC router in my shop for woodworking. I used to control the CNC with a laptop but that died and I needed a replacement. I purchased a BMAX and mounted it to the back of a monitor to use as my CNC controller. While I wouldn't do any serious computing on it, it does work well as my CNC controller. It has decent WiFi connectivity, which I need for the CNC. After two years of living in my dusty shop it still is performing well. I think computers like these have their place as long as you don't overestimate their capabilities.
As long as you do not install Microsoft crap on them 😁
If it's fanless and all solid-state like the one here, it's going to be pretty hard to kill in a shop environment. It has basically no way to take in dust actively, and that little chip is so low-power that even if it did, there just isn't much heat to get rid of in the first place.
Are you running windows on it or linux?
Yeah, a cheap mini PC is perfect for sticking in a garage environment. I've been considering an old office mini PC off Amazon or going with a cheap Beelink to put on the wall behind the old monitor I have on my small work table. It would be nice to have something basic out there for looking something up quickly or just streaming video while I'm out there doing garden prep, auto work or watching my kids play. I put a fire stick on the monitor last summer and it's nice to throw on a baseball game for a few hours.
@gdn86 Go fanless if you can. Anything that gets at all exposed to a shop environment will connect dust super quickly, and fan bearings tend to just die after a while even if the heatsink isn't already super clogged. With a passive unit you just have to clean it every so often.
At my work, we've found good use for these as a one-trick pony. These little nodes basically run a kiosk; the user taps their ID on the reader and the node grants them access to a beefier machine that runs a scanner (e.g. an MRI). We can't install the software directly on the bigger computer as it interferes with the computer's main function (and we can't control the vendor's maintenance schedule) so we just get one of these that will lock the computer.
I've used those mini PC's a few times in industrial applications, no moving parts and locked up in a cabinet.
They are indeed amazing, I use a Minisforum UN100C, for home-assistant, it barely uses more than 9W with a [basic underclock]
@@darknessblades wow, nice overkill. Terminal T630 user here (open vpn 230/230mb/s aes 256 cbc) same wattage most of the time. (40 bucks ^^ )
@@sakork95z Mine was roughly 160 euro after discounts, I did add a 2TB WD red SSD to it. so I have enough storage and TBW for years to come. HASS is known to write a lot of data, killing SD cards, so i went overkill and got a 2TB SSD. so I have enough space that will never get FULL, and/or destroyed due many write-cycles
@@darknessblades Yeah my Plex server uses 10W after I turned off a couple things. Great for a 24/7 PC.
These are perfect for basic office use and for people that only need laptop power, but don't want to spend laptop money, ruin a battery, and don't want a large desktop!
A good option for POS (Point Of Sales)
I would still use a Dell Optiplex Mini tower for pos. You need something dependable for pos work.
Got my boss to replace one of the PCs in my office with something similar to the second mini PC (one with a 12th Gen processor). I used the VESA mount to mount to the desk. So far, it works very well. Providing it continues to work well, I plan to replace the other two we have.
They tend to be more quiet as well....
@@JeffTiberend I don't consider Dell a dependable computer. My last job was at a law firm. They replaced over a hundred desktops with Dell and it took Dell months to figure out why they wouldn't connect to the network. Then they had to get Microsoft Word to work on them. A conversion that should have taken days wound up taking months. I wouldn't take one for free.
The Bmax is a media-box/thin-client. They are not meant to be used for gaming or anything like that. Even as an office-machine these are plenty of capable but that requires an IT-department or at least somebody with some basic knowledge on how to configure windows. At our local technical university they had some real thin-clients and switched to these mini-PC thinclients cause those were just marginally more expensive but far easier to setup and manage (and we were not bound to specific software and hardware vendors).
Windows 10 is an absolute pig. I would install a light weight Linux distro to squeeze more performance. The best case use for these is as a server or client for media center or streaming dongle replacement. These chinese use questionable license and not use a clean windows image. I would not use their software. N100 cost around the same and have slightly better performance.
I can tell you a use case for these machines that I have experienced firsthand. My aunt works for a medical billing company, and she works remote, so the company provided her with one of these little mini computers because all that has to do is run a couple of web pages and web interfaces, and drive two monitors. These machines are cheap and perfect for that kind of application.
The n100 chip has been a huge game changer for home servers with its native HEVC hardware encode/decode and highly efficient power usage. You can run an entire Plex stack while it sips power. Connect it to a low power NAS box and it’s a perfect combo
Indeed, its perfect for homeassistant as well. with it being more efficient than a Raspberry PI. and more powerful for less watt Sadly Minisforum discontinued the UN100C. or else I would have bought another one for proxmox [pihole and the like]
@@darknessblades I didn't know the UN100C was a thing and sad that I missed it :( UN100L is an option but it is taller than the UN100C.
i got an awow mini pc off amazon for free had gift cards i won has 512gb ssd 16gb ddr5 ram and n100 cpu cost me around $145usd that included tax and shipping to new zealand and its decent at running games at 720p and playing emulators and its great for 1080p video editing
@@DizY_8you will probably like it better anyways. un100c m.2 is sata and the motherboard is "upside down". To get to the drives you need #1, #0, #00 screwdrivers and remove the motherboard. un100l looks right side up so you can change the drives without moving the motherboard and the m.2 is nvme. The losses are one ethernet port and 2 usb ports went from 3 to 2. usbc can fix that.
Yes, N100 are insanely good home servers and media servers. It's actually insane that Jay just skipped over all that. He did zero research for this video, and just bought two random computers, and for one of them, he basically just plugged it in, wiggled the mouse and watched a video, and called it a day. If that's not insanely low effort, I don't know what is.
I got one for $280. It has a ryzen 5800h I think with 16 gigs of ram. Has been our Minecraft server for the family for a year and a half. She does her job well 24/7!
I have a Beelink SER5-Max (R7-5800H/32GB RAM/500GB NVME Gen 4 SSD/Vega 8 graphics) I paired it with a portable monitor and use it as a laptop replacement. I have a dislike for laptop keyboards and touchpad.
@@japekto2138Same! I do use a laptop currently but I always have a full size keyboard and mouse plugged into it.
My mom is 76 years old. I got her a mini PC since her previous computer was like 12 years old. I got the N100 processor with 16 GB RAM all for $159. Not a bad deal. All she does is read emails, watch some videos online and that's about it. No need to spend more money. I even mounted it to the back of her monitor. If you need something cheap to use as a media center, then I would consider something like this. Gets the job done.
Just install some Linux on it, so that poor woman does not have to wait for ages to read her mail.
That sounds like a good setup and those N100s have been a great step forward for that segment of the market. Another great option(options are good) are tiny used office PCs(Dell Micro, HP Mini, Lenovo Tiny). They're a great value and I've never had any issues with them due to being used machines. Sometimes, the power supply is a bit extra, and usually storage isn't included. Cost wise, they likely come in a bit lower than the N100, but the difference may be worth the peace of mind of having a new machine and the N100 will consume even less power. So it's definitely a good setup and deal there. As the other comment mentioned, I throw Linux on everything now. My mother took to Linux Mint very well after I set up her computer.
This is exactly what I would buy them for as well. Nowadays even my parents (late 70s) just use tablets. My father uses an old chromebook despite it's battery died and needs constant power. He has a tablet as well - maybe he uses his in bed or so. But he sticks to his chromebook 🤷♀️
I got me a N100 as a my office PC and a N200 as Home/Plex server. Upgraded both with 1x16 quality RAM and new quality 2TB M2 and SDD's. Seriously, couldn't be happier with these little devils
Mine sits on top of my telescope and provides all the software needed for capturing images and controlling everything. Couldn’t live without it.
Actually we have good use-case for this mini PCs. In industrial manufacturing plant just shove it behind 4K TV to run monitoring software - production plan, truck turns, HR announcements, etc. In corporate environment you need something that can run Up to date OS (Windows 10 support will end in October 2025) and for easy management capable to join company domain. This kind of PC is perfect.
To think of it at work we have bunch fairly similar ones running info TV's.
When I was at gigabyte we had those little Compute Stick things doing that. They all ran windows 7 and they ran it terribly, but they could put a slide on a screen and could connect to the local network, and that's all they had to do.
I bought a lenovo ThinkCentre M93P remanufactured last year before a back surgery that made me bed bound for a month and I use it just for internet surfing and KZhead and twitch on my TV. I upgraded the 8 gigabytes of RAM to 16 gigabytes of RAM and the processor. And I freaking love the thing!
They're great
Hope you are doing better
Nice, Lenovo computers are in another whole league. And I hope you have fully recovered.
The whole Think series is just built different. I have a ThinkPad T14 and a ThinkCentre M720q on my desk right now. Both are built like bricks and I have yet to hear a fan ramp up in either.
I've got an M93p and an M73(I bought them at the same time). They're almost identical with the M93p having all USB 3.0 ports. They're fantastic machines. For about two years, I was recommending the M93p to a bunch of people. I referred to it as the best value for a computer based on how readily available they were online. I couldn't believe it when I saw them as low as $45 with the power supply a year ago. That's without storage. The fourth-gen chips are still good for general use and will be for a while, especially with Linux. The systems don't consume a lot of power. The reason I no longer refer to them as the best value out there is because sixth and seventh-gen machines have dropped in price more recently. I also picked up two of the HP mini systems, a sixth-gen and a Ryzen 2400G, and those are nice systems too. The HPs seem to be easier to find lately.
I bought my dad a Chewi Larkbox X for Xmas. I got it in a Black Friday sale for around $169. It does everything he needs it to do: email, internet browsing and Zoom calls. He even has it mounted to the back of his monitor with the kit that came with it. He’s also been tinkering with Linux on it via a USB C drive. I 100% recommend it for anybody in your family over like 70 who you have to help with computers. It has great IO and very few moving parts aside from a fan.
Is Chewi an off brand Chuwi?
@@0LoneTech lol no. I just misspelled it. Maybe I was thinking of Chewy the place where we order dog stuff.
😮
They are fun to try a bunch of Linux distros. I tried tons of OS on my "old" (2019) Gigabyte Brix with J4105 (almost the same specs as the N95). Windows 11 is not good for those devices. Mine can't even reach his ethernet speed on it. No issue with Win10 or Linux. They also work great for emulation, MAME and old consoles.
And he is STILL ashamed of you.
Super appreciate the streaming gaming pc angle. I’ve been trying to get a solution like that for living room/bedroom for a while and refuse to get a console. Seeing the capabilities of these machine for that task was awesome. Thanks Jay!
Agreed with the fact that they are really aimed at home lab environments. The one that has an eMMC would likely be MUCH snappier as a Linux box than a Windows machine
I have two of them. One I turned one into a Linux Debian 12 Owncloud server. It only has 4 GB of ram and a N4200. But I connected a multi drive storage bay with 24 TBs of space and it works perfect! The other one I have has AMD 5500U with 16 GBs of Ram and 512 GB space. I connected a 4 TB external drive to it and use it as my Plex Server. It works like a dream. They are just a really solid solution for building servers that manage media. Thanks for doing this video. I was curious about the N95. Looks pretty darn goodfor the price.
14:00 not you streaming at a higher bandwidth than my entire network connection
Jay,the fact that you don't see a usecase for that lowend machine doesn't mean there aren't any. These things are meant for minimal usecases where other options are too expensive and/or where people otherwise wouldn't have bought a pc. Using this as your daily driver, even as a pure office pc...no, I would get the other one for 50 or 60 dollars more. But if you want to setup a most basic domotics server, or home assistant server, or converting an old beamer into a somewhat useable device for watching a movie outside on your porch/deck, or even using it in an office just for remoting into your virtual desktop, that thing is excellent. For those usecases, if it gets the job done in a somewhat decent fashion it's fine, lowest cost and lowest power consumption then is king. Deploying 200 or 500 of those machines in a callcenter for remoting into your VMs, it makes a hell of a difference if they are 109 or 169 dollar.
This video is so low effort, and clearly so under-researched, I wonder if it's made that way on purpose as rage bait for engagement.
every time i see jay transform into an admiral i can’t help but laugh my butt off. you guys always have the funniest ad reels!
I crack up every time I see Phil stick his head out and say "yeah"
we need a German ad 😂😂😂😂
I'm think that's a in game avatar or profile pic from the devs of the game in the ad.
Admiral Ackbar has nothing on Jay
😂
Another use case is astronomy. People attach these to telescopes to control the mount, a camera, and any other accessories. They load special software to control the equipment and then log into them across a WIFI network.
These small PCs have a nice use case for being like a garage PC if you’re always referencing manuals and procedures for car, home improvement projects.
Couldn't agree more! While I have a mechanic grade reader, I'd use something like this to access say Mitchell or AllData info.
i have one bolted to my wall in my garage with a retractable mouse and keyboard, its a great workshop research machine
I bought a used Lenovo M73 Tiny with an i3-4130T, 4Gb of RAM, and no storage for $20. A small SSD and 8Gb of RAM later I love my mini server setup!
I have a BMAX B3. Intel N5095 with 8gb of ram. Has horrible reviews on amazon but it's been working great for me as a Plex server running Lubuntu as the OS. Opened it up and slapped in a 2tb SSD and I was ready to rock.
May consider adding another 8gb stick of ram just for giggles since it would be stupid cheap to do so.
Ooooh, yeah! You're handling it pretty well =)
I'd rather running them on server distro just because the gui take so much ram haha, also with casaos it's pretty easy to manage
@@idan678 I agree with ya. I just chose lubuntu since I'm familiar with the gui. Works great for me. At most 2 streams are coming from it at once. Handles it without a hitch. Most of my video content that's streamed is 1080p.
whats the difference to just hooking up an external hard drive to the tv and play files from there? only to have a nice homescreen with thumbnails and movie information?
Thank you for showing off how awesome Moonlight / Sunshine is - they need more exposure!
I get how Moonlight can get more exposure, but Sunshine? Rather would need Sunscreen right? 🤣
I have one to “borrow” software online
Been buying these for a while for our medium sized company. Work very well!
Let's go! Minipcs are awesome for what they can do
Jay didn't touch using Linux for a mini homelab for local services, and it's just two really low end units. Some new ryzen units have so much more capability it's crazy. Even for gaming.
Got my parents to buy a Beelink SER5. Fantastic little system for their needs. Very happy with it.
I got mine with a 5560u cpu, brilliant little thing it is!.
I also work at a university and we had these types of mini PC bolted on the back of every TV in class rooms, conference rooms and alike. We had the Dell NUCs. Those thinking were expensive. They worked well.
Jay, the problem with those NUCs out of the box is. First thing windows likes to do is run its updates. So it appears to take forever and a day for them to start responding as they should. i bought a BMAX NUC for about £100. Sole use was to take with me on holiday to stream stuff (with a HDMI and foldable keyboard and trackpad) while i was in my room. I used it to backup my holiday photos to a USB stick so i didnt have to use roaming data or crappy wifi service when abroad. However the first thing i did with my BMAX NUC was to swap out the NVME SSD with a blank one and put a Win10 Lite build on it. Without all the fluff that Microsoft likes to pack into its OS, the BMAX NUC worked very responsive and did the job it was bought to do. So for me, it forfilled its use. Didnt have the issues i saw you having. So now it just works as a little streaming box in a spare room for guests.
The one thing I wish all manufacturers of MiniPCs and NUCs would do is maybe increase size a tiny bit (taller) and add proper mounting holes so we could put a super low profile cooler with a 80/120mm fan instead of being forced to use those terrible laptop cooling fans as an only option. Silence from one of these would make them perfect for a lot of situations, but instead we get whiny laptop sounding machines. Would put huge pressure on ITX systems if these supported better cooling.
Try BD790i
Maybe in a cube form factor. 😉
I got a USB noctua fan that rests over the intake (no real fan headers on the board), next project is drilling mounting holes through the case.
I have an old Zotac Zbox that I cut the top of the plastic housing out of and mounted a tower cooler on the heatsink. I used a usb powered fan for the tower and it actually runs faster than it used to. I have it connected to an old 65" tv for watching pay-per-view in a totally legal way. It is also used for streaming from my NAS and basic computing.
I've got a N100 and a Ryzen 5560U based ones and even under load can't hear the fans. I would prefer the option to mount a proper 120mm fan, but these machines are not loud because you think they are, some might be but mine aren't.
Sometimes i wonder that what type of computers exists in Jayz world? 1. 98% computers with only the high end graphics, 2. 1.5% of eWaste (like this video) and 3. 0.5% everything else. Jay: You can do better like these percentages show.
I have one of the mini PCs. I bought it so I could browse the web on my TV. I actually found it to be more useful as an emergency backup. In case something happens and my PC and Laptop are out of commission this will run google suite and allow me to get work done while working on getting my desktop or laptop back up and running. Its also small enough I can keep it in my bugout bag with a flash drive with all my critical documents. All in all, pretty handy to have in a pinch. 🍻
I bought the bossgame and it was delivered 2 days before this video went live haha love it! And not a bad little system at all. Got it as a "shipping pc" for my small business. It easily handles that and ofc watching jays videos
I love my blink* (edit: not bmax, oops) minipc that I use for dedicated servers for Games like Palworld, Satisfactory, etc, running in docker containers. Its fantastic.
12:12 I love to see Jay do video entirely with this voice.
Yes but no please 😭😭😭
Hey Jay, good to see you all sparkly again, hope you are feeling better and doing well.
I replaced my homelab server rack with 3 of the bee mini/bos ones. Saves about 40/month in electric bills and it just works like a dream with proxmox and containers
Not to promote another youtuber here, but ETA Prime reviews these mini pc's, sbc's, and low profile gpu's. He is also really into retro gaming and emulation. Fantastic youtuber that is in more of a niche part of the pc computer.
we have so many of mini pc's as the b max at work, runing simple linux terminal client to serv as a terminal for windows rds server for the employee.
Yep a lot of companies use these for basic office work and call center work. call centers still use a lot of old software from the 90's especially Debt collecting and banking and these things can run them without using much resources.
Yup. These are basically the modern version of a thin-client PC. They just now finally have enough hardware to be able to run a proper OS locally rather than be solely a remote access machine.
A friend of mine needed a very basic PC for his barber shop so I got him one of these minipcs, mounted it to the back to the monitor, and he’s been using it for the past 5 years. As a office pc these work quite nicely, has enough power to keep Chrome and Spotify open, and that’s what most people need.
We use a one of these as a remote-access node for our warehouse. They can remote desktop into it (over a VPN) to access the order system. Its been great. Mounts under the front counter and nobody knows its there.
The good is that it's tiny and clean, but people say it's all about the movement and proper usage. The bad is that it's way too expensive. For instance, for the same amount of dollar, you could build a system that's 100% better than the mini pc counter parts
In this price range there’s no alternative or comparable builds. A case and a motherboard would run you more than the entire PC.
What system can you build around $100-150 that would be 100% better than a N100 or 3400GE mini PC? I am all for building PC towers for the right use but it is not as simple as you describe it to be. Mini PC and PC towers are intended to satisfy different markets. Kind of like motorcycles vs cars or drones vs planes.
@@Rushil69420 Sure you can, but just second hand. In fact for ~$200, you can readily build a ryzen 5 3600 with rx 580... At least in FB market in my area. Edit: This new mini pc is about $190 + tax = $213.75 and FB don't have any tax.
@@Pilaspilas911 The more expensive of the two that he reviewed just now- the Bosgame B95- is $170 shipped on Amazon right now. (Granted, if you’re not in North America or China the pricing might not be as attractive) But the point stands. I know it’s doable but RAM, a cooler, storage, a motherboard/CPU, and a GPU (if integrated graphics won’t do) for under $200? Unless you find a mostly intact Optiplex and put some work into it, you’ll most likely be cutting more corners than you would just getting a Ryzen 7 Mini PC for ~$220. You’re simply not going to find modern 8 core or comparable performance at that price, and if you do it’s definitely not in that form factor.
@@Rushil69420 That's $170 + tax = $190. I never said anything about small form factor did I? I can build a desktop variant for the same price and you can downgrade or upgrade depending on your budget. And your argument only really applies for LOW END mini pc. My comment is towards general mini pc that includes 7840hs which cost a lot. Just so I can prove my point since I have to spell it out for you... 190 USD = $260 Cad, so here's the build: -Ryzen 5 3600 - $60 Cad -Motherboard and Ram - $90 Cad (b450m and 16 gb ram) -PSU 450W and ATX case - $35 Cad (not the best looking case, but it'll do) -RX 580 - $40 Ca -256 gb ssd - $25 Cad Total: $250 Cad You can find multiple offers like this readily available and the system will crush B95 in any aspects except for small factor case Edit: Bear in mind that these are listed price and I'm pretty sure you can haggle it down further
I would like to see a mini pc with a AMD cpu and what that can offer =D
An AMD mini pc with Batocera is just bliss. Got me out of trying to constantly trying to squeeze the last bit of performance from different Pi builds.
There are a ton of them, some even get Radeon dGPUs like the 6600M, but a lot of the high-end ones now come with the 7840HS or 7735H (rebadged 6800H).
I bought one with a Ryzen 5560U chip, and I don't see much difference doing general desktop usage to my desktop Ryzen 5600. What does tend to take a tad longer is things like installing new software, but you do most of that at the beginning and then not that much anymore. I paid just over US$250 shipped for a 16GB ram and 512GB SSD version. The only time I found it lacking was doing AAA gaming, which isn't surprising.
we use them in industrial sites for displays of production numbers or alarm messages for operators or as clusters for displaying camera feeds to operators.
Thank you for doing this review. The BOSGAME is precisely what I need. I just ordered one using your link. I do some competitive gaming and mainly used Team Speak in the past, but now all the cool kids want to use Discord. For some reason, Discord causes frame stutters with my gaming primary system, so I plan to use this little microcomputer exclusively for running Discord external to my main computer OS with a USB Yeti headless and then connecting the BOSGAME’s audio out into my main computer’s audio line in using a ground fault isolator to make sure there is no audio no interference. Thank you for the video.
"14th gen CPU, sorry, 12th gen CPU." As everyone tries to determine a difference across the majority of SKUs
Set mine up as a retro emulation/mid range game device with a 2TB SSD and it's perfect. They are also very portable if you ever wanted to take it over a family/friends house. (Beelink SER5 MAX)
I actually was looking for a mini pc moonlight setup for the living room TV. Its amazing that you made a video for it.
I would hate to admit this on the street, but, I got one of those Bosgames for streaming my online movie services. I janked mine though. I drilled holes in the sides and cut the top open and put a Be Quiet 120mm fan on it. Wrapped it with carbon vinyl and stuck it to the back of my living room tv. It works pretty good. Wireless mouse and mini-keyboard at the lazy boy. Turned my living room tv into a smart TV. Jank? Yes. Better than paying $3,000 for a new TV for now.
I have a Minisforum HX99G. I bought it barebones and put 64GB RAM and 4TB of nvme drives in it. It's pretty good.
I love these new styles of your vids. Keep it up
I bought one similar to the better one you have. It was to replace my dads really slow Dell desktop that had a low end laptop processor. Just used for internet browsing and watching stuff and running just a couple simple programs. It's snappy and has a good picture. Perfect for his needs. I plan on getting one to put on my shop TV for when I need to look something up out there.
I run a few of the N95/N100 mini pc's in a lab for Kali Linux. We've done both local installs and client version set to run VMs on a lab server. They work well for what we wanted and stay out of the way by mounting on the back of a monitor.
I purchased a GMKtec mini PC with the N100 chip, the base model that I upgraded to 16GB RAM and added additional storage. It has been a surprisingly capable little thing.
The mini PCs are very useful and used everywhere! I see them at the DMV. (Lenovo) Car Dealerships and repair (Lenovo) Many other stores used instead of dedicated POS machines. I bought one for my wife, she just needed it for some work stuff. My daughter needed a computer for school, and I don't have a lot of money lying around, so it gets here school work done. My current and previous server were mini PCs. Mostly because they are running all the time and are low power. Usually in the 6 to 9 volt range. My original server acted as a printer and web development server. My newer laser printer has networking built in, but I still sometimes use my old color inkjet. The newer server, which is now 9 years old, also acts as a Minecraft server. Sure it drops some ticks, but works pretty well most of the time. They definitely have their uses. Heck, my main machine is still rocking an I7-4770k. Programming, graphics editing, video editing, gaming, etc. Yes, I badly need a new computer, but that takes money. Maybe next year when Microsoft ends all support for computers before 2018.
these are really great for upgrading or moding a one up arcade, or even making a retro game station or pc
I use one of these mini PCs hooked up to my TV. I use steam link to remote play anything from my main PC. I also use it for streaming youtube, netflix etc. Great for a living room "smarter tv" type system. I plan on getting NAS for my home which will even further make these mini PCs worth it.
I got one of these kind of mini PCs with the idea of having a PC that replaces a laptop since anywhere I go to now has access to a screen. Also for emulation that I can run on my TV. So far for something that's $260, it works great. Even can do PS3, Wii-U and Switch emulation which I did not expect.
I had an Alienware Alpha for years as my main PC. It was just slightly larger than these mini PCs but had a discrete GPU. There are definitely a ton of options whatever your use-case
Something like this is a perfect collab for people like: serve the home, hardware haven, raid owl. These are super awesome homelab pcs at the price point of a high end Roku or Apple TV
I been waiting and hoping you would review mini pc's. Thanks...finally!? ll do a review on a mid range and high end mini pc as well.
0:12 Jay, that's not a thin client, but I understand why you may have thought it was. Thin clients are (typically) used to connect to virtual environments hosted elsewhere, such as in the cloud. It serves only to provide an interface with a few usb ports to connect a keyboard and mouse, one or more (depending on the model) of monitors, and a network port. That's not to say you couldn't use the remote desktop software on a minipc. A thin client won't be able to do much else beyond connecting to a VM.
A lot of their existence is I think just geared towards being the simple, ultra compact convenience that they are. We used to run them at my workplace attached to the rear of large TV's for public facing info displays.. that was pretty much it, but they did what they needed to do.
The Boss Game is nearly the exact same case as the BeeLink mini-PCs the company I work for uses for our register computers. Some of the ones we have are 4th gen Ryzen 5s, and the rest are 5th gen Ryzen 7s. They all have at least 16gb of RAM. They do a great job for what we use them for. A few of the office personnel use the Ryzen 7 BeeLinks and those work well with MS Office (Excel mainly). For business mini-PCs seem to do a great job, but the processor needs to be a decent one.
We actually use them in our plant for connecting to terminal servers. Cheaper than Thin Clients, smaller than thin clients, easier than Pi's. We also are trying some out on web based MES systems, but generally have to buy more powerful ones for that.
They use these in offices where they have a virtual workspace on a server. It is common in many companies to have a small server for the whole office to access and then have these used as access points.
They use these in hospitals for the nurses workstation on wheels (WOWs) they connect to a server for electronic medical record, lab, pharmacy, notes, whatever..theyre powerful enough for local use and everything else is offloaded
You could mount the BMAX on the back of a monitor and use it as a dedicated Juke Box for local music files or streaming.
Maybe like inventory tracking for a warehouse? Scanning items, shipping programs etc.
Thin client PC's are used pretty often in industrial applications, my software was written for windows 3.1, these are leagues above that and work just fine.
2nd one and above is great stuff for people who do office work or just browse the web. Cheap, functional, runs windows, got some ports and hooks up to a bigger monitor. Quickswap of harddrives and RAM makes mini PCs like this easy for both home-users and companies to either stick in a bigger stick of ram to buy a year of life, or swap drives if one either fails or you need to get rid of the old one for policy reasons For the price, unmatched.
I use one of these boxes (minisforum) for my own inhome wireless audio streaming setup via Voicemeeter. I can connect bluetooth and audio 3.5mm, combine them in voicemeeter and then have audio in each room. As well as remote control via Foobar.
I setup a BMAX with a mini monitor connected to some old ring cameras that I use to monitor my 3D Printers in the next room. Works great.
To be honest, I could see the Bmax being a rolling Powerpoint or workstation for an office setting. We have TV's that are constantly showing off stats from the factory floor.
Funny, almost bought the Bosgame for work to test out as a kiosk PC (I work for an MSP). Might pull the trigger after seeing your review! Oh and im hireable by the way :)
I would use it as mini-server to manage my home internet, using pfSense, for example. Complete control over all connections, router-level adblock, VPN and such. Add a couple of WiFi antennas and a switch and you have a budget-friendly router/server combo.
I got a nice used one kinda like that thick boy for $65 on eBay. I got it just to run media player and store my mp3 collection. I plan on running it into my home theater. Cheap and easy!
I recently bought a mini pc with a Ryzen 3750h and Vega 10 graphics. I upgraded the memory to 32GB and the stock Intel Nvme ssd wth my XPG 2 TB Nvme SSD which was in my previous pc. It runs most of my pc games from 5-10 years ago and some emulators fine at 1080p. I bought it because I didn’t want to have a regular pc anymore and I do my gaming on my Xbox series S, Xbox 360 and PS5 for the most part. Congratulations Jay on 4 million subscribers and thanks for the video.
What model did you get and where ? if i may ask would love to give my dad a retirement gift and what you are using sounds perfect for his needs.
@@orangejishen It is an ATOPNUC R7-3750h from Amazon. I think the manufacturer ATOPNUC has a website with the exact name. It comes with an Intel 512GB SSD, 16GB of memory and comes with Windows 11 Pro. You can upgrade the Nvme to 2TB and 32 GB of ram. An SATA SSD can be installed but I opted to use it externally since it is directly at the top of the memory and too close to the Nvme at least for me. I hope this helps.
@@orangejishen I thought I responded to the question yesterday, somehow it is not here, but I bought the mini-pc on Amazon. The manufacturer is ATOPNUC, model R7-3750H with 16 GB of DDR4 ram and an Intel 512 GB ssd.
@@orangejishen My comments are getting deleted, I don’t know why, where can I send you a message?
We run quite a few in an automotive manufacturing environment for workstations. We even use a few of the crappy intel compute sticks. They all function fine for the daily workload of the data collection system we run. For us, it's all about the cheapest option that doesn't slow an operation down.
At work we need a bunch of displays that just show a camera or a webpage with production stats or the like. I've used PCs like that in the $200 - $300 range and they work fine.
I find these things perfect for computing away from home. Just bring it along with the proper cables, it doesn't consume much space at all, and you can hook it up to the hotel TV when you get THAT ONE email from a coworker while you're on vacation. Sometimes your phone and/or laptop just isn't the right tool for the job.
The minisforum is pretty awesome too can actually play quite a lot of games without a graphics card slotted in. Some of them even offer external gpu support too.
I have a BeeLink SER5 with a Ryzen 5 5600G. The thing performs really well and was $350. I used it in a retrofit project that had major space constraints. Really solid little machine.
We used those little PC's (Intel NUC at the time) in conference rooms in our office. My conference room PC's just needed powerpoint or web browser usage.
We need to see more MiniPC info/testing/teardown/building using both Windblows and Linucks.😊
Where I see these mini PCs shine actually is a retail environment. The stations where an employee can look up inventory information for a customer or even hooked up to POS system at a small independent retail or restaurant setting where they dont want to pay for a full register setup and are using a dumb cash drawer and one of those card swipers that more or less plug into their phone. There is a surprising amount of retail support products on amazon for anyone that either can not make orders large enough to work with retail supply venders or just cant pay their prices which sometimes are higher then they really need to be. Though for the home there is little use for them as you can get a cheap laptop for the price of the mini PC + monitor, keyboard, and mouse if you just need something for homework, taxes, and online banking.
i used one of these to build a windows-powered ATM-like self-service pump station. speaking of that, they're probably used in ATMs too.
Please do a video on streaming/remoting into a gaming computer with a little machine like this. I have been wanting to do this for a long time but have so many questions on 1. Which mini streaming computer I should get, 2. How to set it up, and 3. if my wireless mouse and keyboard are going to control the game via the nearby mini computer or have troubles because they need to be connected to my gaming pc in another room. I would love to use this to connect my gaming pc (in an office that is on my second floor/room directly above my living room) to the mini pc in living room, with my tv as the display. Also which is better? Remote playing on steam or using a remote desktop to control the gaming pc?
I use one, simply to process ecom orders. Hooked up to a label printer, works fine even with 20 chrome tabs
I have a few in my house performing various roles such as a home assistant system running HAOS, a weather monitoring system, and an OPNsense firewall (model I have has two 2.5GB nics) that are quiet and consume little power. Ditch windows on those little boxes and they're very useable as tiny virtualization hosts running proxmox, debian, or whatever flavour of Linux you like.
I bought a Minis Forum mini pc last year, been very happy with the super tiny form factor and 1080p gaming it can pull off in anything but the newest titles, it's a great little indie game/older game PC for being the size of 2 slightly flattened soda cans :) I use it as my multi media PC in my living room, it has already paid for itself in the savings on my power bill compared to streaming everything from my gaming PC to my TV via Steamlink, so if you're considering a mini pc, and want some oomph, I can personally recommend going for a high-spec AMD APU one. Mini PCs in general also has the advantage of letting you completely bypass all the nonsense and crap your TV comes with, never plug your TV into the internet and let the mini PC handle it all, I personally got mine cause I was sick and tired of Samsung running unskippable unmutable ads on the homescreen on my TV, my plan was to eventually get an External GPU enclosure to connect to it, but they seem to have completely vanished from the market here in the EU, I can't for the life of me find them, the only listings I can find are Razer Chroma X which are like 500€ for the case alone, and they are out of stock >
I literally ordered a slightly dated HP Elitedesk G3 today as even a $120 refurb machine out powers a Pi 5. In my case I picked one up for an emulation box. I was debating on the Pi 5 but honestly by the time you get the pi, case, cooling, a sd card, a charging cable, ect you're at at least $140, from what I was seeing most starter kits are closer to $160. I couldn't justify the price for what you get. They're very cool devices and I have a Pi 3 as a Pihole and a Pi 4 running OctoPi for one of my older 3d printers.
There are probably better options out there, but that lower spec system could be used as a really cheap way to run digital signage. Display a mall map type thing or a newsletter stuff like that.
I have used one like these (Intel Nuc) for years to monitor a home weather station (Davis Vantage Pro), and send out data to different weather services. So, perhaps would be great for one or two service type apps that you stick in a basement or cabinet to just work.
The n95 and n100 Intel mini machines are actually great as a media server, they have pretty amazing 4k encoding for their size, and paired with a hard drive enclosure it can make for a pretty affordable media server.
Super funny recently I did some consulting stuff for a local business, and after going over their day to day tasks which was mostly web browsing and looking at the budget and stuff we went with systems similar to the BOSGAME from GMKtec that had the slightly better N100 CPU but only 8GB RAM and they work great, but yeah these devices were definitely like "web only" devices which worked out for their business since they needed roughly 10 of them and that $180 price was about the most we could fit into their budget.
I like the WoW sponsor spot things. y`all are really creative! Have you guys thought of running the I LIKE BOATS one again or creating one like that again?