A TINY N100 Mini PC

[@benargee]

That included USB-C adapter is awful. If it's always 12v, it should have been a barrel connection.

[@nickhomer40]

That power adapter is a deal breaker for me. I don't trust someone who can't competently make/source a power supply to competently make a computer.

[@frankwong9486]

BMW supra just left the chat due to too many BMW parts include engine 😂

[@AnirudhTammireddy]

It came as a shock (no pun intended) to witness that part of the video. Imagine the label gets worn out over time and someone uses it unknowingly.

[@Andy-fd5fg]

Same here..... why do people keep butchering USB-PD?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@Andy-fd5fg because the true PD module costs like 3$ and they rather pay a few cents instead. Mass production baby

[@AnirudhTammireddy]

@@Andy-fd5fg Because USB-IF nOn-pRoFiT will bend and obey when the corporate overlords command. Small players like this company from the video are just scavengers for the customer leftovers of above overlords :)

[@stclaws9580]

thanks for checking power options

[@gentlemanbirdlake]

I saw they have a similar model that has dual 2.5Gb ethernet, which is nice.

[@martinjjnoagenda5536]

About three years ago I bought the Mele Quieter2Q with an Intel Gemini Lake J4125. Worked fine for daily tasks. Plenty fast enough with 8Gb memory. They ain't gaming processors, but power savers, like in laptops. It had non removable storage for the OS and you can add you own M.2 drive for expansion, though the PCI speed was limited. Not suitable for super fast Nvme drives. The ports where slightly different. It does get warm, so don't put stuff on top of it. The USB-C of the power adapter is indeed something to be careful with. I assume this N100 in this newer version is even a bit faster. Just a cute, small and silent pc. Great for movies, etc.

[@guxtavo14]

Windows: ain't nobody got time for that :)

[@nakfan]

Found your channel today as this video was suggested to me. Immediately subscribed 👍 BR, Per (Denmark)

[@markshade8398]

ROM????? Read only memory???? I think there is a serious mistake there ...... The correct term would be storage (which by necessity could not be ROM).

[@teksimian]

take it easy bud lmao

[@markshade8398]

@teksimian it's crazy that the manufacturer labels it as ROM and for someone who doesn't know better that could cause a real misunderstanding. Words matter .... And more so in technology.

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info, have a great day

[@homelabjohn]

Power adapter could be an accident waiting to happen, why do they use 12v usb-c power supplies. I normally discard and use a normal USB-PD power supply to avoid the issues. These types of systems are great for home-labs low power and can run normally 2 two 4 services / applications as long as they are not to power hungry.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

no PD chip in the power supply is cheaper, obviously

[@KingOfAllJackals]

I’d rather they just say “source your own USB-C PD capable power supply” than hand me this little hand grenade. I know they would get a ton of RMAs because half the folks would try to power it from their iPone 4 usb charger and that just makes me sad.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@KingOfAllJackals blame the USB standards group for having everything besides usb 2.0 as an optional on the usb-c cable

[@almc8445]

@@marcogenovesi8570 That’s like trying to blame VESA because someone used DisplayPort to deliver 240v… This is not part of the standard. It’s just a shitty manufacturer pulling a dodgy.

[@MockingTruth]

Have the n5105 version of this as an expendable parent pc with all files syncd to cloud for simple restore

[@IndigoVFX]

Being compact, very power efficient and relatively cool I'd look to use this as a simple media server. It's nicely made, but as others have said I have some concerns about that power supply. I was impressed to see that the PC does appear to support Power Delivery over USB-C so if I was to get one I'd probably just toss that stupid PSU straight in the bin to avoid any future "accidents" with other devices. Now a question: do Mele make a version using the N305 or N150 chips?

[@AndersJackson]

Cut wire and set up a barrel connection.

[@fubarpie]

Now that is a truly mini PC

[@Soupie62]

With no connectors on one side, you could rip this out of that box - and put it in something wider. Use the extra space for more passive cooling, or even a small fan. A 75% keyboard width, for example, would get a you a setup similar to the Pi 500.

[@guruoo]

Or add a touch screen and battery and it's a tablet.

[@Soupie62]

@@guruoo I would rather not have something THAT hot, sitting on my lap. Your opinion may differ.

[@maxdiamond55]

Great video, thanks. Summary with pro s and cons excellent 👍🏿

[@MehriMonadi]

Beside some SBCs.. try to make a Pi5 with all the features this mini PC already has, included and shipped with the device, there is NO contest. This device or similar products are much better choice.

[@flowerpt]

The dual 2.5G model has a coupon today making the price the same. I am hoping it has split emmc/nvme so I can set up a zfs boot mirror but the description is lacking. Hopefully you get credit for purchasing the other model. This will be my new standard model for solar computing xen dom0 if it all works out; probably print out a stand to hold a dozen of these vertically in a few U and pair it with a 2.5G switch. Lordy the nics could be bonded for 5G even, back to a nas on 10G if the switch supports aggregation.

[@JeffGeerling]

Love that shirt! :D

[@VioletGiraffe]

I've been using a Core i5-8500T mini PC as a daily driver for years (6-core Coffe Lake, no HT, 3.2 GHz). While by no means powerful, it's completely adequate for most tasks including software development/compilation, and some non-trivial games. According to benchmarks, N100 is *slightly* faster than 8500T. But it only has 4 cores, so it should be quite a bit faster in single-thread tasks. All in all - sufficient performance for a very low budget.

[@mattjoo]

I love deploying these with thinlinx, were past the point of using old computers and needed a replacement for the already aged equipment. WYSE and HP are far too proud to sell their products at a reasonable rate for what they are.

[@markx6288]

Fun video! That YOJOCK usb power tester is cool. (thanks for the warning) MiniPC might be a nice N100 thin client?

[@benargee]

Nice size, but the specs seem overkill for a thin client that doesn't do it's own compute.

[@kameraadcoenraad]

This would make a great kodi htpc! Do you think it will run x256 4k?

[@remainsmemories626]

5:10 you'd be better stress testin and measuring CPU power consumption using s-tui utility running as root (it doesn't show CPU power consumption otherwise)

[@KapitanMokraFaja]

Seems like you do not have to use their charger? I'm checking the specification on EU amazon and it has two power ports. One for DC, and second usb c supporting power input. I understand it's a lost usb port, but for those in comments that say it's a dealbraker - there is alternative.

[@apalrdsadventures]

yes, both type C's on the device support USB PD power input - it's just the charger that doesn't support PD

[@lesh4357]

I think one important thing about these types of units is the power consumption at idle. Wasn't sure if the 12w was idle or under load ? And yeah, would stick a big 12V label on the end of that cable !

[@stevebabiak6997]

He said the CPU was under load, and it was closer to 13W if we are rounding off to nearest integer.

[@mattjoo]

Also these run great with WINE and run lantoplog2 very well.

[@rushunt2131]

I wonder if you could put a nvme sata card in there and make a tiny plex server for like camping ?

[@brajanubgan88]

I assume you're talking about nvme to several sata data ports adapter Yes, you could, but I don't know how or why you would do that if it's not going to a stationary unit 1 - additional sata hdd's/ssd's would add a lot of width/height/whatever to the size of the pc 2 - how would you power said drives? Unless you tap into the usb c psu I doubt you're gonna find any 12v source on the motherboard itself As for the 5v I guess you can always use usb for that 3 - simply why? You'd still need to power the unit + the drives + deal with the increase in size I like self hosting, but IMO in that kind of situation simply take a laptop with external usb drive already preperred with the movies/shows you think you're going to watch and... Well... Watch it that way But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

[@rushunt2131]

@@brajanubgan88 I was thinking like in an rv, the low power of the unit makes it quite intriguing as a portable nas - plex for that specific instance, small size, low power, a couple of 8 tb samsung ssd's and you could have a headless tv system in the rv. just a thought.

[@sketch2002]

@@rushunt2131 I replaced the 256GB NVME drive with a 4TB one and have been using it for a Jellyfin server at home for ~six months. I did have in mind to take it camping, however my choice of router thwarted my attempts. I was able to run the computer itself off a USB battery bank though, so I think it would server your purposes fine with just the drive swap and a properly configured router. In case anyone cares, mine works fine, but by default it didn't handle the port forwarding as I'd expected and I wasn't in the mood to figure it out while sweating under the trees. Of course, for exactly what you stated, you probably don't need a router at all, just hook the pc to the tv and run with it. In my case I was hoping to drive a few different devices over the router's wifi.

[@supergrafxengine4620]

At that point a smartphone with a USB is a mini pc.

[@untitled8027]

I completely bricked one of these trying to install linux on it. Wrote data to the wrong drive and it no longer even booted correctly after that.. was a waste of 200$ for me. Sigh.

[@hpsfresh]

5 of them and proxmox cluster with ceph :)

[@ordinarygg]

what kind of drugs do you use, please share)

[@marcogenovesi8570]

and it will run like complete garbage because Ceph

[@pflasterstrips7254]

they have an PCIe m.2 slot, with the right adapter you could connect more than one drive over that

[@damiendye6623]

​@@marcogenovesi8570not being because of ceph but the lack of bandwidth and CPU power

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@damiendye6623 Yes, it seems the cat ate half of my post.

[@xtrailz]

I never heard of the Zoobuntu linux distribution before

[@apalrdsadventures]

it's spelled with an X - xubuntu.org/

[@DimasFajar-ns4vb]

wow and peace be upon you sir from me and zamzam water

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

Memory is not upgradable, but I think 16GB is the max for the processor.

[@dasnomadium]

I’m such a fan of that hardware. OpenBSD runs very well on those mini pcs.

[@EkiToji]

It's just such a shame a waste they don't have an Atom version that actually supports ECC UDIMMs.

[@dasnomadium]

@@EkiToji Yeah, I wonder what needs to happen to be able to truly see consumer level hardware supporting ECC memory.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@dasnomadium direct act of God, or EU regulation

[@vasiovasio]

Great review, but Dude, please clean your Macbook Screen! 😂😂😂

[@ovalwingnut]

I haven't been this intrigued since I found out my 'hot sister' was adopted. Just saying I absolutely LOVE lil' form factor computers. And "that one" seems especially COoL (priced right, to-boot). You know you're talking small when the "coin cell" is one of the largest components. Good review. p.s. REMOVABLE STICKERS? I'm S.O.L.D! (clearly I'm EZ to please). Thank you for the video.. Cheers from So.Ca.USA 3rd house on the left.

[@CDAWWGG43]

The pricetag is brutal too. Over $200 for a N100, 16GB and questionable 512GB SSD. A used lenovo tiny with an 8th or 9th gen i7 is cheaper and a lot faster. Power consumption would absolutely be higher but a much better value. For refernece a 12th and 13th gen i3 and a board is about the same as this brick. I want to edit and say thanks for all the awesome videos you've made and I hope you make more. It was only a criticism of the hardware and manufacturer. Love your videos. You helped me learn to love linux again. Your proxmox tutorials gave me the confidence and courage I needed to ditch Broadcom. I'm truly grateful.

[@Andy-fd5fg]

I like the exterior design, nice and small and would make a great appliance..... I could see this having all the monitors, and being used as a VNC/RDP client. It's a shame they didn't use proper USB-PD, along with enabling the port to be able to plug a laptop style docking station for bit of expandability.

[@apalrdsadventures]

The device does support USB-PD, and can be powered by either port (so you can use a laptop docking station), as long as it can negotiate 12v The included power supply doesn't support PD and just provides 12v all the time.

[@Andy-fd5fg]

@@apalrdsadventures that’s interesting to know

[@george_gav24]

While I am a big fan of SBCs this seems like a ripoff, can get a much better spec mini pc for that price or a way cheaper sbc with better specs

[@estusflask982]

It's $197 on Lightning Deal right now. That's not bad for N100 with a special, smaller form factor. I wouldn't pay it's MSRP of $239 though.

[@KifKroker]

There are better N100 systems out there 200 is too much for that dangerous fake USB-C.

[@shinto29]

yup, picked up a Firebat T8 Pro Plus for 130 euro ($133) on Aliexpress last month, works great other than the NGFF SSD I plan to replace.

[@NiklasAuBln]

looks nice, but I doubt that the components they choose (capacitors, ...) are a good quality, they probably just choose the cheapest available parts that somehow works. I mean they cheap out on a PD capable Power supply to probably save a buck or two so I don't want to know where else they cut corners. In my experience devices that are that much cost optimized will fail faster than a bit more pricey devices with higher quality components -> I'll not buy this

[@alain-m2t]

All these tiny, mini price go up to match the normal hardware/software - nothing to gain

[@adamdavila]

Bro, shave!

[@goodcitizen4587]

And get some steps in.

[@fadate7292]

I am the only person in the galaxy that thinks USB C multivoltage is BAD and shouldn't have been permitted.