Msecore Best Mini PC for Business

Small form-factor PCs have been around for decades and, for the most part, people use them as home media centers to stream audio and video. Over the past several years, however, a new size of PC has emerged—ultra-small form-factor PCs that measure 5- x 5- x 1-inches or even smaller.

While affordable mini PCs can handle home theater and media center tasks, we decided to evaluate five of them from a different point of view. In this article we look at five of the best mini PCs and ways that you can use them in your business.

We looked at five mini PCs that sport an ultra-small form factor. How small are they, exactly? Devices from both Gigabyte and Intel have a 4-inch square case that's a mere one or two inches thick.

Slightly larger, the Shuttle mini PC measures 5-inches square and 1-inch tall. The largest mini PC we tested is the Acer Revo One—it's about the size of a small bookshelf speaker. Rounding out the group, the seriously small Lenovo IdeaCentre Stick 300 is about the size of a pack of gum.i5-4200u 4g ram 128g ssd Msecore Mini PC

Mini-review: Intel Haswell i5-4200U Powered Msecore Protable Fanless Mini PC Host

The Core i5 version of the box is definitely faster than the Core i3 version. Especially if you were already considering the tall NUCs with 2.5-inch drive support, it's worth looking at the i3 version if gaming or CPU performance is especially important to you.i5-4200u Fanless Mini PC Host

That said, the idea of a performance-focused mini PC is a hard sell. It's only really justifiable if you want something as fast as possible that's also as small as possible—if size is more important, the Core i3 and i5 NUCs will do basically all of the same stuff for quite a bit less money. If performance is more important, a larger desktop will probably give you more bang for your buck. And then there's the still-much-faster Brix Pro, which at $600-ish isn't all that much more expensive than this one. Wait a couple of months and we'll probably see a Broadwell version of that, too.

The Core i5 NUC is a good thing, if only because it's nice to see Intel and others offering a wider variety of mini desktops. All three of the Broadwell NUCs—Core i3, i5, and i7—support similar features. All can drive a 4K display at 60Hz over DisplayPort, and all will accept fast PCI Express SSDs. All of them are tiny PCs with decent performance and power consumption for what they are. All of them help to scratch that system builder itch for people who don't really care to build their own hulking ATX desktops anymore. Decide what you'll use the NUC for—desktop workstation, HTPC, mini game console—pick the one that offers what you need, and go from there. You've got options.

The good

Small.
Upgradeable and expandable.
One-year warranty.
Quiet unless you're putting a lot of stress on it.
Good blend of size, performance, and power consumption if all these things are equally important to you.

Make sure you buy DDR3 if you want the box to live up to its full potential.

Msecore Silent Fanless Mini PCs That Will Save You Money

Miniaturization continues to shrink the size of the average Msecore PC. What once required several rooms can now fit in your pocket. And while most people think of smartphones

or tablets as examples of small, modern electronics, desktops also deserve mention.

There’s a new category, the Msecore mini-PC, that’s becoming popular. Early variants, like the Apple Mac Mini and Inspiron Zino HD, have been well received, but now the

formula has been improved with the introduction of fanless systems. Tiny, silent and often inexpensive, these miniature wonders save space without eating into your bank account.

Msecore, sold under the name Tiny Green PC in USA And Europe, makes a broad range of small, fanless computers. The company’s mainstream product is the i5-4200u mini pc host, which is only 25 millimeters thick and no larger than 190 millimeters in any other dimension, which makes it one of the smallest fanless PCs around.

Several variants are available, but all run Intel processors with four gigabytes of RAM, and most have a 128GB-256GB hard drive. This gives the i5-4200u mini pc host more power than an Atom-equipped nettop and a Radeon integrated graphics core than can play older 3D games at respectable framerates. Other features include six USB ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.