Fan noise: Like laptops, mini PCs cram a lot of power into a small case.(However, our Mac picks are not upgradable in this way.) Ease of upgrades: You should be able to upgrade the memory and storage on any mini PC without much technical know-how.Because mini PCs fit almost anywhere, many clever mounting options are available, and if a smaller mini PC model has a VESA mount (more on that below), you can tuck the PC behind a monitor or underneath a desk. Size: A mini PC should be small enough to hide behind or under a monitor, taking up no additional space on a desk.Each of our picks comes with the operating system preinstalled. Preinstalled operating system: We focus on computers that have either Windows or macOS.A mini PC should have at least two ports for connecting to monitors-any combination of HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C is workable for most people. The ports should be split between the PC’s front and back so that you can access at least a couple of them without messing around at the back of the computer.
A great mini PC tosses in a USB Type-C and/or Thunderbolt port and an SD card reader. Ports: A good mini PC comes with at least four USB ports.Expect to pay between $600 and $800 for a mini PC capable enough to last you the next few years. Price: Mini PCs are smaller than desktop PCs, but their size doesn’t make them cheaper-on the contrary, cramming everything into a small box is an engineering feat that you pay a small premium for.Wireless features: Every mini PC should come with support for Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) or Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless networking, as well as Bluetooth, so you don’t have to waste USB ports by adding dongles for Wi-Fi or your wireless keyboards and mice.Budget picks usually come with less storage, but Chrome OS relies more on cloud storage than Windows and macOS do, so local storage isn’t as big a deal for a Chromebox. A 256 GB SSD should be available as a standard feature, and upgrading the storage or adding a second drive later should be easy. Storage: A spinning hard drive can bog down an otherwise speedy computer, so a solid-state drive is a requirement here.If you spend lots of time in heavy-duty apps such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or Premiere, or if you regularly edit several large spreadsheets or databases at a time, you may benefit from 16 GB aside from the Mac mini, any of our picks allow you to upgrade the RAM if you decide that you need more. Memory: We recommend at least 8 GB of RAM for browsing the web and handling basic productivity tasks.
With the exception of our budget contenders and the Mac mini, all the mini PCs in our test group have a midrange 12th-generation Intel processor.
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