Any favorite "off brand" NUCs you've tried?

[britechguy]

Those of us who serve the residential market either primarily or exclusively are constantly faced with finding a way to get the most "bang for the buck" and keep costs as low as is reasonably possible. With the end of life for Windows 10 fast upon us, one class of computer for those who don't want laptops to fill that void is NUCs (regardless of who makes them - that term has now become generic).

If you search Amazon, these machines are myriad. I seem to recall @Sky-Knight once mentioning BeeLink (though I could be mistaken) and I've found a number of other potentially appealing options for those on very tight budgets on Amazon, including but not limited to:

GMKtec Mini PC Intel Core i7-1195G7 (up to 5.0 GHz) 32GB DDR4 1TB SSD Desktop Mini Computers WiFi 6, BT 5.2/ DP, HDMI/RJ45 2.5G/USB4.0 $419.99

GEEKOM Mini PC IT12(3-Year Quality Support),with 12th Gen Intel i5-12450H Mini Computers,16GB RAM/512GB NVMe PCIe Gen 4 SSD Windows 11 Pro Desktop PC,USB 4.0/2.5G LAN/8K,for Business|Office|Home $379.00

GEEKOM A5 Mini PC with AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, 3-Year Coverage, 16GB RAM&512GB M.2 NVMe SSD, Windows 11 Pro Desktop Computer, Vega 8 Graphics, 8K UHD, Dual HDMI | Wi-Fi 6, BT 5.2, USB 3.2 | Home & Office $339.00

For the vast majority of my home users, an 11th gen i7/12th gen i5/Ryzen 7 is way, way more than powerful enough to meet their needs and more, and these things take up so little space.

I have to presume at least some among the readership have used some of these Chinese brand PCs at one point or another, and may know of specific brands that have been rock solid versus endlessly problematic. If so, please share.

I've never been brand loyal when it comes to any of the major players in the US computer market, but know next to nothing about these options.

 

[lan101]

I think I remember that thread from @Sky-Knight mentioning those and having good luck with them.

Maybe I'm still too old school but I still prefer the refurb market of dell/lenevo/hp business class either the towers or even the micro ones.

I just feel the reliability is still decent enough although I think that's declining from what it used to be for sure. I certainly can't trust any drives in these anymore so I always put in a sata ssd brand new which of course increases the costs a bit.

Maybe these NUCs hold up better than I think. Home users tend to want to keep the computer for probably way longer than they should at least where I'm at so I feel like long term reliability is still the number 1 thing to try and obtain.

But yeah maybe these machines are worth a look for someone that wants new and doesn't want to spend more than a few hundred dollars.

The new business class computers of most of the major brands have kinda gotten out of the price range that cheap folk want to spend lol.

 

[britechguy]

The new business class computers of most of the major brands have kinda gotten out of the price range that cheap folk want to spend lol.

The new business class computers of most of the major brands have gotten out of the price range that most residential or very small business clients want to spend. Period. End of Sentence. End of discussion.

And for what they need them for, and how they intend to use them, they don't need them, either. We are so, so, so very far past the day when anything has been processor constrained, RAM constrained, or disk-activity constrained when SSDs are in use. I mean, in your average home or office, what's needed and wanted is a machine that can handle three things with ease:

1. Web browsing
2. Emailing
3. Using office suite programs

separately or in combination.

Any of the specifications on the machines I mentioned earlier can not only meet, but exceed, those needs by a long shot.

I just had a client several days ago who has a machine with an older i5 processor (but post 8th gen, as the machine is running Windows 11) that was still using a HDD and had become glacially slow as a result. It was a 1 TB drive that was barely more than 20% full, and that included the space for Windows itself. Not knowing this ahead of time, I ordered a size-matched 1TB NVMe SSD, though a 512GB would have done just fine. After imaging the old drive, and restoring that to the SSD and making it the system boot drive, speed increased very dramatically and the client was thrilled. I'm sure she'll get at least another 5 years out of that computer for what she uses it for.

What's now "the latest and greatest" is far in excess of what your average home or even most office employees need to do what they need to do quickly and efficiently. As the landscape changes, including who's making computers, I'm trying to change with it based on meeting the needs of my clients.

BTW, that definitely includes looking at off-lease refurbed earlier generation business class options, too.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I think I remember that thread from @Sky-Knight mentioning those and having good luck with them.

Maybe I'm still too old school but I still prefer the refurb market of dell/lenevo/hp business class either the towers or even the micro ones.

I just feel the reliability is still decent enough although I think that's declining from what it used to be for sure. I certainly can't trust any drives in these anymore so I always put in a sata ssd brand new which of course increases the costs a bit.

Maybe these NUCs hold up better than I think. Home users tend to want to keep the computer for probably way longer than they should at least where I'm at so I feel like long term reliability is still the number 1 thing to try and obtain.

But yeah maybe these machines are worth a look for someone that wants new and doesn't want to spend more than a few hundred dollars.

The new business class computers of most of the major brands have kinda gotten out of the price range that cheap folk want to spend lol.

The BeeLinks have worked well for the customer that bought them.

I'm just concerned because you can't just reinstall Windows on them. They aren't fully legit.

As for the rest... well... PCs are PCs, and good PCs are expensive. Home users on a budget, they get tablets. That's where the market went.

 

[lan101]

The new business class computers of most of the major brands have gotten out of the price range that most residential or very small business clients want to spend. Period. End of Sentence. End of discussion.

And for what they need them for, and how they intend to use them, they don't need them, either. We are so, so, so very far past the day when anything has been processor constrained, RAM constrained, or disk-activity constrained when SSDs are in use. I mean, in your average home or office, what's needed and wanted is a machine that can handle three things with ease:

What's now "the latest and greatest" is far in excess of what your average home or even most office employees need to do what they need to do quickly and efficiently. As the landscape changes, including who's making computers, I'm trying to change with it based on meeting the needs of my clients.

BTW, that definitely includes looking at off-lease refurbed earlier generation business class options, too.

Yeah I totally agree 100%

I usually can still find some solid deals for business refurb on ebay if I look a little bit.

One of my tax accounting clients recently we got a dell optiplex 3070 with a 9th gen i5 right around $200 nearly mint condition too and it was perfect for their needs. I put a new ssd in it as well because I didn't trust an old one. Then I just imaged over the old windows 10 and did the 11 upgrade and good to go.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah I totally agree 100%

I usually can still find some solid deals for business refurb on ebay if I look a little bit.

One of my tax accounting clients recently we got a dell optiplex 3070 with a 9th gen i5 right around $200 nearly mint condition too and it was perfect for their needs. I put a new ssd in it as well because I didn't trust an old one. Then I just imaged over the old windows 10 and did the 11 upgrade and good to go.

I find those CPUs to be rather sluggish, but I'll be darned if those units aren't rock solid. If they're OK with the performance loss then yes, those units are perfect for many.

 

[fincoder]

NUCs (regardless of who makes them - that term has now become generic)

The official name "NUC" is now owned by Asus, I believe they previously manufactured them for Intel and have now purchased exclusive rights to the name and design.

Some other known brands like MSI and Gigabyte have made NUC "clones" over the years but I don't believe they used the NUC name officially.

NUC mostly refers to "barebones" mini PCs that require RAM, storage and OS to be added. They became popular among home enthusiasts and probably some IT departments due to that ability to customise. However I think Asus now offers fully functional NUCs now, although it's hard to distinguish which are assembled in the factory and which are assembled by wholesalers and retailers.

In Australia the barebones Asus NUCs are a bit too expensive because the OS license costs at least $180 (for W11 Home). I usually look for ones that include OS (the fully functional ones) because they're more cost effective.

The generic brand mini PCs such as Geekom and Beelink are very cheap in Australia, partly because they're directly imported and sold online. No local support and possibly not subject to Australian Consumer Law regarding warranty etc. I suspect the other reason for being so cheap is their OS licensing arrangement. I have no idea what that arrangement is, but they're certainly not buying a license for each PC in the normal sense. They don't come with a license key sticker, and they don't have embedded license in the BIOS, but they're sold with Windows 11 preinstalled and activated. If a reinstalled OS doesn't reactivate automatically by Microsoft servers or account, apparently the mini PC owner needs to contact the company (e.g. Beelink) by email and request a license key that might only work once. That licensing seems dodgy to me and is the main reason I don't resell these generic mini PCs to customers.

 

[frase]

Have been watching these How is it made videos of late here is one of the Beelink spy device lol.

 

[lan101]

I find those CPUs to be rather sluggish, but I'll be darned if those units aren't rock solid. If they're OK with the performance loss then yes, those units are perfect for many.

Yeah just an office that does office 365 and a separate tax program. A little email/web browsing...so it more than does what they need. If anything I bottlenecked it a little bit myself by using sata ssd instead of nvme...but I've just found the reliability better and that's what is more important than a little more speed which they likely wouldn't even notice.

 

[GTP]

Have been watching these How is it made videos of late here is one of the Beelink spy device lol.

Fascinating stuff! It’s not just a factory tour, it’s like peeking into the heartbeat of modern tech. What really grabs me is the scale - despite all the negativity you hear about these little machines, the production lines are running 24/7, cranking out tens of millions every year. Add in the other manufacturers, and we’re talking hundreds of millions of these mini-PCs in the wild. Clearly, the world is voting with its wallet!

I’ve got an older NUC myself with an i7 8600, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB NVMe. Never skipped a beat. First thing I did was N&P it and slap on Linux. Now it happily runs a VM alongside the main OS, crunching away on BOINC, Signal, FreeTube, music, and whatever else I throw at it. For something that often gets bagged out online, I couldn’t be happier - I love the little beast!

 

[Sky-Knight]

@frase I've had 6 of these behind an Arista Edge Threat Management NGFW for a year now. There's NOTHING going back to China that isn't Microsoft.

I can't say the same thing for Dell, but either BeeLink is using all US based telemetry servers, or there isn't any telemetry being gathered.

If they're spying... I don't see it.

 

[frase]

@frase I've had 6 of these behind an Arista Edge Threat Management NGFW for a year now. There's NOTHING going back to China that isn't Microsoft.

I can't say the same thing for Dell, but either BeeLink is using all US based telemetry servers, or there isn't any telemetry being gathered.

If they're spying... I don't see it.

Was only joking, just due to the hyper cybersecurity issues of current times.

I have an an Intel one -

INTEL NUC MINI PC
i5-4250U, 8GB DDR3 Ram
120GB SSD, WIFI
WINDOWS 11Pro

Used for streaming purposes for media, I have had zero issues, sits under my tv.

 

[Diggs]

I have an an Intel one -

As do I. It has an i3 with 256 SSD and 8 GB RAM. We also use as a media machine. It's hooked to a 4 TB external DAS.

 

[Blues]

I just wish they offered these w/o an OS for like $30-$50 cheaper since for me and a huge section of buyers I suspect we turn these something else.

 

[Metanis]

I've used Beelink, Minisforums, and Peladn mini pcs in the last year. I'm not impressed with Minis support. But Beelink was fine. And I've never had need to use Peladn's support.

I was really impressed with BIOS in the Peladn devices. They allow very low level tuning where the other 2 have severely locked down settings.

I'm typing this on Minisforum unit that took 20 minutes of Google Kung Fu to just find the download support page. They keep changing their web sites and removing the direct links for support. I wanted to check if there was a new version of the BIOS as this unit keeps blue screening. (They shipped this Ryzen 9 7940HS unit before AMD worked out the kinks in things like core parking.)

 

[Sky-Knight]

Was only joking, just due to the hyper cybersecurity issues of current times.

I have an an Intel one -

INTEL NUC MINI PC
i5-4250U, 8GB DDR3 Ram
120GB SSD, WIFI
WINDOWS 11Pro

Used for streaming purposes for media, I have had zero issues, sits under my tv.

After the SuperMicro incident, I felt the need to be clear.

Another note, I have yet to see a single one of these micro devices get an EFI update. Which leaves them all sorts of vulnerable.