From office environments to cozy home offices, mini PCs have carved out a niche, offering a blend of functionality and space-saving design. Even in educational organizations, they serve as accessible, affordable gateways to the digital world, while in industrial and commercial spaces, their reliability and durability shine. You can use them as entertainment devices as well.
In 2023, the market has seen an impressive range of mini PCs, each tailored to meet specific needs and preferences. Whether it’s for professional use, academic purposes, or personal entertainment, there’s a mini PC out there that fits the bill. With advancements in processing power, graphics, and connectivity, these devices are not just keeping up with their larger counterparts; in many ways, they’re leading the charge in innovation and user-friendly design.
Today, let’s look at the Best Mini Pcs of 2023. There were a lot of mini PC announcements in the past 12 months and here are our Best picks for the year.
BEST MINI PCs of 2023
Best Budget Mini PC – CHUWI HeroBox 2023 N100
The Chuwi HeroBox 2023 keeps the design of its predecessor while adding major improvements on the inside. Its small and light magnesium alloy and polycarbonate body makes it easy to mount an external monitor, thanks to VESA mounts. The device has many ports, such as USB 3.0 (x2), USB-C, USB 2.0 (x2), VGA, LAN, an audio jack, and a microSD slot for extra storage. It is powered by the Intel N100 processor, which gives it solid performance. You get all this for just $170!
Best Mini PC for NAS – aoostar R1 N100
The AOOSTAR R1 is a small and inexpensive mini PC with a 6-watt Intel N100 quad-core processor based on Intel’s Alder Lake-N architecture. It can hold two 3.5-inch hard drives and has two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports, which makes it a good choice for do-it-yourself network-attached storage (NAS) setups or media servers.
There is an M.2 2280 SSD slot and a single SODIMM memory slot that users can access. It also has dual cooling fans, support for up to three 4K displays, dual 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports, and WiFi 6. The AOOSTAR R1 is the first product to use Intel’s Alder Lake-N processor, which is known for its 12th-generation Intel Efficiency cores that improve performance while saving energy. This makes it a great choice for budget-conscious users and home servers.
Best Performance Mini PC – Geekcom mini IT13
As one of the fastest computers in its class, the GEEKOM Mini IT13 Mini PC performs very well in a number of benchmarks. Its small 4×4 form factor does not skimp on storage, as it supports both NVMe and SATA storage along with full SO-DIMM memory. However, it uses DDR4 instead of DDR5 on a platform that can support second-generation DDR5 memory. Despite this, it has great connectivity, with USB 3.2 Gen ports on the front and USB4 ports on the back.
Best Designed Mini PC – AYANEO Retro Mini PC AM01
The Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 is definitely something that would stand out in your office or even home. Featuring a macintosh inspired design, the mini PC blends nostalgia with modern technology.
The Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 offers a range of configurations, from an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U to an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Its notable feature is its extensibility, featuring five USB ports, HDMI, DisplayPort, headphone jack, ethernet, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. It provides flexibility by offering Windows 11 pre-installed or a “bare” version for custom OS installations like Linux or SteamOS. While it’s competitively priced, its real appeal lies in its versatility, serving as a potential computer, retro gaming console, Plex server, or more, and can be bundled with mechanical keyboards and wireless controllers.
Best Expandable Mini PC – Geekcom mini IT12
The Geekom Mini IT12 is a small but powerful mini PC that comes with an Intel Core i7-1260P processor with twelve native cores. It has a lot of connectivity options, including two Thunderbolt ports, which makes it more useful. It does use a lot of power, but works well even during high-intensity tasks, especially when configured with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD.
So these were the Best Mini PCs of 2023. If you think we missed out on any specific mini PCs that stood out this year, let us know in the comments section below.
