Need a mini PC

[Eclipse]

One of my home computers went pop last night at 11:30, fair bit of smoke came out the back of it.
Sounded like an electrolytic cap exploded, made me jump out of bed real fast
It's probly in the PSU which I do have a spare to replace it with but thought I would look around
for one of them small mini micro ones to replace it with.

I only use it when in bed for watching Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube vids, surfing the web and remoting in to my main computer via rust desk
So it does not have a lot of heavy lifting to do.
Ideally it would have a HDMI port but could make do with DP and again ideally WIFI and Windows 10.
I am thinking of 8g of ram and a 120gb SSD.
I guess I could also replace it with a laptop.

Anyone know of any good deals going on at the moment ?

[porter_jamie]

U bought one off Amazon for exactly the uae you talking about. Its ace runs 2 monitors and was about 250 quid or something

[KungFooBob]

Sounds like you need a £24 Firestick.

[Eclipse]

Sounds like you need a £24 Firestick.

I have Alexa's and use them with my Tapo products but never seen a Firestick.
The monitor does have a HDMI input so it would plug in but I dont know what they are capable of doing.
Can they do everything I mentioned in the first post ?

Do they have a web browser ? so I can access emails and things ?

[KungFooBob]

They run a flavour of Android, they can do pretty much everything you list with the right app.

You might need to jailbreak it to side load anything you can't get from Amazon.

I bought one at work to run videos at a trade show running vlc, even got it to work without an Internet connection.

Doesn't even need to be a Firestick, there are similar that don't try to lock you to Amazon (but they're more expensive).

The other option would be something like an Intel Compute Stick, they used to run full fat windows, but I don't think Intel make them any longer.

[roadster]

I have four of these ranging from an Asus NUC14 with Core Ultra i7, MSI Cubi N with N200 processor, GMKTec G5 with N97 processor, and finally an old Dell Optiplex 3050 bought second hand with Core i7 processor.

The Asus would probably be overkill but I use it as a high resolution music server and player combined and needed the parallel processing power.

The GMKTec G5 is tiny but surprisingly powerful but GMKTec prices have risen sharply. It came with Windows11 but I am using it for Cachy Linux at present.

The second hand Dell is probably best value for money and they are readily available ex commercial users. You might need a little trickery to run Windows 11 but I would still recommend 11 for versatility.

If you want to watch good quality youtube stuff then decent graphics might be where small machines can come unstuck if you're using a high resolution monitor. Definitely check reviews which demonstrate dropped frames and stuttering (statistics for nerds on UT).

Its a bad time to buy new because AI server farms have sucked up available processors and memory and forced prices through the roof.

[Eclipse]

The Firestick idea is interesting and I will probly get one just to try out but I think a PC would be
more useful in the long run.

I have found a GMKtec Nucbox G2 for sale 2nd hand at a good price, just seeing if he will post it.
I would consider the dell's but there are so many on eBay I am not really sure which ones are the better ones.

[MyLittleStudPony]

I think The Bald Beast does something similar with one those Rasberry Pis with a memory stick plugged into it. I don't really understand any of it. The computers! The computers!

[dern]

I bought one of these a few months ago to replace my mum’s knackered old pc and was very impressed. You’d have to check the specs but I’d be surprised if it couldn’t do what you need…

https://amzn.eu/d/0j9nuc8l

[Count Steer]

I bought one of these a few months ago to replace my mum’s knackered old pc and was very impressed. You’d have to check the specs but I’d be surprised if it couldn’t do what you need…

https://amzn.eu/d/0j9nuc8l

Hmm. Interesting that. Thanks. At that price I could be tempted as I have a spare screen, keyboard etc etc and it would probably do what I need as a replacement for my old laptop - which has rarely moved off the table, ie portability isn't required. Might go for a bigger SSD though.

[the_priest]

This one is NVME storage, so much quicker. https://amzn.eu/d/0cwTvRGE

[Count Steer]

This one is NVME storage, so much quicker. https://amzn.eu/d/0cwTvRGE

Quite an incremental jump in price for that though given the rest looks similar spec.

[the_priest]

This one is NVME storage, so much quicker. https://amzn.eu/d/0cwTvRGE

Quite an incremental jump in price for that though given the rest looks similar spec.

I agree, but the NVME is the game changer. The read write speeds are much faster, like jumping from spinning discs to SSD, so it is going from SSD to NVME, but even quicker. They do a smaller drive, so the costs are less, have a look at their shop. But I don't look at anything other than NVME if I want even a sniff of performance.

[Eclipse]

Thanks everyone for your input.

I picked up a secondhand little black box same as the one in this link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TRIGKEY-Mini-C ... to_dp_puis

16gb ddr4 and 500gb ssd, win 11 . It plays 4k YT videos with 0 dropped frames and feels snappy with win 11 on it.
Does everything I want it to do so am very happy with it.

[Newbie73]

I have two GMKTek mini machines. One low spec n100 for the TV and a higher spec as a main machine. My dad also has a mid range. All have been fine so far

[Count Steer]

In the end I went for a lower spec Bosgame (with NVME) as mentioned by The Priest (lower spec because it will, basically, be running Libre Office and a few other things - don't need a gaming spec box).

Looking at the packaging I think all these things come out of one factory. The only branding is on the box itself.

Will report back on it once set up.

Thanks for all the info.

[Count Steer]

Well that was pretty straightforward, quite impressed so far for the cost.

It is quite amusing though - cute/neat little box - but by the time you've plugged in a power supply, screen, mouse/keyboard dongle, SSD data disc...you have a bit of a rats's nest of cables. If I wanted sound that'd be even more.

LibreOffice looks pretty good but only used Calc so far - looks/feels pretty much like Excel. (Downloaded free from The Document Foundation. Some smartyboots is selling it on Amazon...and it's not even the latest version apparently).

[Count Steer]

That went as planned.....

....not.

Having bought a cheap as chips mini-PC with the plan to use wife's old 27" monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse a) couldn't find the dongle for the keyboard/mouse and b) decided the screen was too big.

Bought a 23" 4k capable screen + new keyboard/mouse (just for the dongle really!). In the mood for a bit of on-line clickery I added a Verbatim 4k Bluray read/write drive and a 4k disc player for the TV.

On the scrimping front I found the key/code for my Cyberlink DVD software, deinstalled it on the laptop, downloaded and installed it on the new box. Next up the free version of Bitdefender.