MINIX NEO Z83-4 Pro, Intel Cherry Trail Fanless Mini PC Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) [Intel X5-Z8350/4GB/32GB/Dual-Band Wi-Fi/Gigabit Ethernet/Dual Output/4K] (4G+32G with Windows Remote)

I must confess: I am biased against Microsoft Windows. I switched to Mac 10 years ago and never went back. And I love Chrome. But I had to replace my mac desktop. I tried the Apple Mac mini, 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 Dual Core, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Mac OS, Silver, MGEM2LL/A (Newest Version) but it was a huge let down: it didn’t feel particularly snappy for a $500 investment. I briefly considered a chromebox (this ASUS CHROMEBOX-M004U Desktop is the top seller, and only $150), but I couldn’t get over the impossibility to run the very few desktop apps still not on ChromeOS. Then I stumbled upon this $200 PC. After reading the reviews, I decided to give it a try. I have now been using it for a week and I LOVE it. Other reviews give a lot of specifics already, so Ill focus on my perspective as a user: + It is “snappy enough”: I can do everything I want (web browsing and youtube, sometimes light image editing), without feeling that I have to wait for the computer to catch up. + The design is clean and simple + This computer doesn’t come with much “crapware” pre-installed. That was my biggest fear moving off of MacOS, but I was happily surprised. Microsoft asks you several times when you decide to break up with its recommended defaults, but after a few “are you sure?” pop ups, understands that “no means no”. + Most of my work is in a web browser, and I use Chrome, but at least this way I have the option to try Firefox or Microsoft Edge (competition is good). Here a few things to note: +/- 4GB RAM seems to be minimum to have a “snappy enough” Windows 10 experience. +/- Cortana is annoying, but you can disable her +/- The 32GB of Hard drive really is 16GB of “usable space”. Win10 is that storage-hungry. You can always add a ultra micro sd card to expand storage Why not a 5.0 rating? Windows can still be annoying sometimes, and it is not the snappiest (but for the price...). I’ll update this review as time passes, but for now, I highly recommend. This desktop is right for me, but is it right for you: the kind of user I am - I live in the cloud. I love Google services (and Amazon’s too!). I appreciate Apple’s “less is more” design principles and the superb quality and durability of their products, but I don’t like that it is often “their way or no way”. - I have been using a Chromebook as my primary laptop computer for about 4 years now. I currently use the Samsung Chromebook Plus Convertible Touch Laptop (XE513C24-K01US) - I am “cheap” (or to put it nicely: “savvy”). I don’t like to pay for the brand premium or the fanciness I don’t need. I am fine paying for quality or “fair trade / eco friendliness”, but I have found that “high quality on the basics” and “inexpensive” actually align. - Oh, and I know a thing or 2 about consumer electronics from a past job.

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I bought this for my daughter when she started 6th grade. I love the fact that it has Windows 10 64 Pro, which made it easy to connect to my home network. I took this out of the box, hooked it up to an old screen, set up the wireless keyboard and mouse, connected it to the home network, downloaded an open source office suite, and voilà, she had a fully functioning desktop for school for under $250. As a business owner (law firm), I can really see the brilliance in this sort of device. The storage wouldnt be enough to run my office. However, it would work just fine as a workstation with network access to the main hard drive. For a small business, you could set up a high capacity desktop computer and then get a few of these, tied into the main hard drive on the network, and save yourself a bundle in computer costs over time. These beat laptops hands down because you can use screens and keyboards you already have lying around - very cheap. Mostly we are using computers for actual work - office software, etc... We are not playing games or watching videos. These are absolutely perfect for cash conscious computer users who use their computers for productivity. I have a feeling Im going to be buying more of these for the firm once our current suite of desktops starts needing to be replaced.

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I purchased this for use within a rack-mount server center. It serves as my "test pc" for all the user functions of my network. I chose it for three reasons: 1. Its tiny -- i velcro-mounted it to the inside of the cabinet (power cord is tiny too -- ive seen others with big/cumbersome power blocks) 2. There are no moving parts -- less chance of failure 3. It had Windows 10 Pro installed (many others have Windows 10 Home, which doesnt work in a business setting with servers/etc)

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From the time I cut the tape on the box until I was doing "work" was less than 15 minutes. It comes with an HDMI cable and the mount to attach it to the back of your monitor. The speed is comparable to my Surface. I had backed up my old PC onto a 64Gb thumb drive and Ive left it in this new PC as another drive. The video is wonderful and the sound is good. Speaking of sound, its almost creepy how quiet my office is now without a noisy tower PC buzzing. If you already have a desktop setup (monitor, keyboard/mouse), this is a no-brainer if you are a typical home office user considering a PC upgrade.

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An excellent mini-pc with high performance. It can easily drive a 4K monitor. We are using two of these for digital picture frames where we show network images and video clips in a continuous slide show. They are noiseless and are essentially invisible either behind the monitor (VESA) or right below it on a stand. There are multiple high quality video connections available and numerous USB ports. Slightly tricky to update to win 10 fall creators update (1709) to avoid running out of space during the install. Using an external USB flash drive took care of the problem.

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I have to admit, I was skeptical at first. I mean what kind of a computer are you going to get for $199...really! Turns out you can get a great one! Ive graduated from "skeptic" to "Huge Fan" of the MINIX NEO Z 83-4 Pro. My order arrived on time, I had it out of the box, set it up with dual monitors, loaded up my software and was off and running in less than 15 minutes. SUPER Simple! SUPER Small, and SUPER Powerful. Ive been using it heavily for the past several days and I couldnt be happier. Im still blown away at how small this thing is. Its a desktop PC the size of a sandwich. Ive demod it to a couple of my friends and theyve already order them. Loving it!

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boots up with windows 10 pro. activates right away. after testing that everything works under windows 10 pro, I wiped out the storage drive and installed minu linux. I also tried debian linux. but mint does everything for you. some bios adjustments needed. in linux, I was able to extract the windows 10 pro license key from the BIOS. Im not reveling that information because I dont know the legalities of that. but it is very easy in linux. so after installing mint linux, I got everything but wifi working. sound works. videos play in full screen very well. Im using wired networking until I can get wifi working. the cpu temperature is very reasonable. runs warm to the touch. I took it apart. there are not easy upgrades on the motherboard. everything is soldered on. unless you know how to de-solder surface-mount semiconductors, there are no upgrades. You can add storage on a micro sd card. there are also four usb ports, you can add storage via usb. The box has a plastic cover and an aluminum bottom.

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Using it as a HTPC (home theater PC). Along with an air mouse/remote, works beautifully. Runs Kodi, Netflix, Hulu, VLC Media Player perfectly. Also have a hard drive connected to it with movies and other media. There is one CON, and thats the amount of internal storage space: 32 GB. Its not really enough to have anything installed, and be able to update Windows. This can be alleviated by: 1.) Uninstall any program or app (especially Windows bloat like Office 365) that isnt needed or used. Once done, there was enough space to update Windows. 2.) Install Windows to an external hard drive. 3.) Employ an SD card, external hard drive, or USB thumb drive to install any app or program to, so as to leave as much of the 32 GB internal storage that is left over to be available for updates. There are ways around the limited internal storage issue. But its not enough to remove a star. The device works perfectly for what it is. This company has excellent customer support, as well as great communication on their forums. They also have many other devices which include upgradeable hard drives if more internal storage is needed.

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Hooked this up to a large conference room tv we use a monitor. Works well and very small to hide. Nice that it came with Windows 10 Pro and mounting options. We ended up using Gorilla Tape for the mounting enclosure and slipped the mini pc in like normal. Not extremely powerful but gets the job done for Power point presentations, word documents, viewing Pdfs and pictures. We dont use it for much else, but for simple stuff and the price of this thing we were very happy.

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