5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING Bang for the buck, replaced a laptop that cost 10x as much!!

2026-02-23    -Marc from Westbrookville

What a STEAL. I bought this mini-pc about a week ago as a replacement for my ACER Helios Predator that costs about 10 times as much. And sure enough after setting it up it loads and runs everything fast enough that I don't notice the difference. I am running streaming (IPTVSmartersPro), Diablo 2 Resurrected and LOTRO all at once and it handles it just fine. I bought the 32 gig 1tb option.When I purchased his mini it also gave me an additional $150 off, so I paid roughly $350.The only downside to this is the Type-C on my laptop supported video display, but on this device it does not seem to. However the MINI-PC has Display-port AND HDMI so perfect for my set up. I originally was gonna give 4 stars, but since it did not matter about the Type-C problem this device deserves 5 stars.It uses an OLD technology called eSata (as opposed to nVME but you won't notice the difference much if at all. Boot up and setup took a while but once that is done it will run so fast.Overall if you are like me and trying to make every dollar work for you than this is the clear choice. I will more than likely remove the nVME and memory from my old laptop and put into the mini, but even so it still runs very quiet, you will not hear a thing (at least compared to my old laptop which the fan is making a LOT of noise.

5.0 out of 5 stars Media PC

2026-02-20    -Amazon Customer

Purchased as alternative to Fire Cube which works fine but not nearly as extensible as this. I have 20TB HD full of movies, music, comedy, trip footage, etc. connected via USB. I've a TV tuner connected via USB for local broadcasts, I've added an external sound card and it is all connected via a Receiver to the TV. It works spectacularly. I could not be happier considering the price of this setup.

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice little PC

2026-02-25    -RP

Great mini pc, plenty snappy for web surfing and perfect for the grandparents.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not For Upgraders

2026-02-12    -Amazon Customer

So, thought I would upgrade to 16 to 32 Gb of ram and add an SSD, well kinda, and no. First there are no instructions on getting into this thing. You have to take off the bottom rubber pads that are GLUED on to get to 4 screws and then the bottom will snap off - be careful takes a couple of shims to lift it off. Now there's another plate with 4 screws and at least this lifts out easily. Okay we're in. Good news is one open slot for memory - they use DDR4-1600 (16 Gb is ~$20 on Amazon). Bad news is there is no internal space for a 2.5 inch SSD. There is an empty slot for another NVME however. So, the price is good if you're not an upgrader, but be cautioned.

5.0 out of 5 stars Stays cool and is power efficient.

2025-12-26    -E. Rippee

I was careful to pick the right mini-pc that would have decent everyday performance and good cooling. So far THIS computer has done great. I ran several handbrake encode tests and saw no throttling from overheating. Playback of media files all the way up to 4K x265 and AV1 works great. Occasionally I'll find a file where the bitrate is just too high but this is rare. For just a few dollars more I could have upgraded to a faster CPU and more ram but again my worry was too much heat. I found a good promo code on techbargains so I was able to score mine for $219. I tried having a strong fan blowing across the vents to see if I got a boost in fps during my encode tests but saw little difference. At this price point you are getting older generation laptop hardware but that doesn't mean it won't perform well provided you have at least 16GB of ram. Just to be safe I placed the box on a passive laptop cooler and bought an extended warranty. The PC is the size of a small paperback novel with good transfer speeds over USB 3.0 of around 300 MB/s using windows explorer. Running Teracopy slows transfers down greatly to 65 MB/s but you get the CRC check. I often back up my movies to HDD to watch later without adding wear and tear on my UB820. This little computer plays the files just fine. Costs the same as a Nvidia Shield but has way more functionality. Finally I have not had one problem with W11 Pro or any updates. Not a fan of some of the W11 changes so I installed classic shell.

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice little PC

2026-01-06    -RP

Great mini pc, plenty snappy for web surfing and perfect for the grandparents.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not For Upgraders

2026-01-08    -Amazon Customer

So, thought I would upgrade to 16 to 32 Gb of ram and add an SSD, well kinda, and no. First there are no instructions on getting into this thing. You have to take off the bottom rubber pads that are GLUED on to get to 4 screws and then the bottom will snap off - be careful takes a couple of shims to lift it off. Now there's another plate with 4 screws and at least this lifts out easily. Okay we're in. Good news is one open slot for memory - they use DDR4-1600 (16 Gb is ~$20 on Amazon). Bad news is there is no internal space for a 2.5 inch SSD. There is an empty slot for another NVME however. So, the price is good if you're not an upgrader, but be cautioned.

5.0 out of 5 stars Stays cool and is power efficient.

2026-01-23    -E. Rippee

I was careful to pick the right mini-pc that would have decent everyday performance and good cooling. So far THIS computer has done great. I ran several handbrake encode tests and saw no throttling from overheating. Playback of media files all the way up to 4K x265 and AV1 works great. Occasionally I'll find a file where the bitrate is just too high but this is rare. For just a few dollars more I could have upgraded to a faster CPU and more ram but again my worry was too much heat. I found a good promo code on techbargains so I was able to score mine for $219. I tried having a strong fan blowing across the vents to see if I got a boost in fps during my encode tests but saw little difference. At this price point you are getting older generation laptop hardware but that doesn't mean it won't perform well provided you have at least 16GB of ram. Just to be safe I placed the box on a passive laptop cooler and bought an extended warranty. The PC is the size of a small paperback novel with good transfer speeds over USB 3.0 of around 300 MB/s using windows explorer. Running Teracopy slows transfers down greatly to 65 MB/s but you get the CRC check. I often back up my movies to HDD to watch later without adding wear and tear on my UB820. This little computer plays the files just fine. Costs the same as a Nvidia Shield but has way more functionality. Finally I have not had one problem with W11 Pro or any updates. Not a fan of some of the W11 changes so I installed classic shell.

3.0 out of 5 stars Very limited

2026-02-13    -T5

Only 1 hdmi connection. Only 1 usb-c port. No vga port. It’s ok. Not great like other reviewers claims.

5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING Bang for the buck, replaced a laptop that cost 10x as much!!

2026-03-06    -Marc from Westbrookville

What a STEAL. I bought this mini-pc about a week ago as a replacement for my ACER Helios Predator that costs about 10 times as much. And sure enough after setting it up it loads and runs everything fast enough that I don't notice the difference. I am running streaming (IPTVSmartersPro), Diablo 2 Resurrected and LOTRO all at once and it handles it just fine. I bought the 32 gig 1tb option.When I purchased his mini it also gave me an additional $150 off, so I paid roughly $350.The only downside to this is the Type-C on my laptop supported video display, but on this device it does not seem to. However the MINI-PC has Display-port AND HDMI so perfect for my set up. I originally was gonna give 4 stars, but since it did not matter about the Type-C problem this device deserves 5 stars.It uses an OLD technology called eSata (as opposed to nVME but you won't notice the difference much if at all. Boot up and setup took a while but once that is done it will run so fast.Overall if you are like me and trying to make every dollar work for you than this is the clear choice. I will more than likely remove the nVME and memory from my old laptop and put into the mini, but even so it still runs very quiet, you will not hear a thing (at least compared to my old laptop which the fan is making a LOT of noise.