Key things to look for when buying a mini PC

Buying a mini PC isn't like buying a laptop or a fully fledged desktop PC, but a pitfall-laden experience that sits somewhere in between

How big is mini?

There's no formal definition of a mini PC. When we invited PCSpecialist to submit a system into this month's group test, it sent both the Azena R (see p93) and the Torpedo Ultra R (see p52). But the Torpedo proved to be ten times the size - in terms of volume - as any other system in this Labs, which is why we moved it to the main Reviews section instead.

However, there is an argument that it's a mini PC, as it uses a microITX motherboard and one of Corsair's smallest chassis.

For the sake of our sanity, we decided to draw the line at three litres. That's still small enough to tuck a PC behind a monitor or sit on a stand. But there are big benefits if you decide to go smaller still, particularly under one litre. At this point, all the mini PCs on test include a VESA mount (either as a separate plate or with screws built into the chassis).

That means you can attach them to a monitor - you'll probably need to buy a mounting kit - or to a monitor arm, or screw the mount into a wall and keep the PC there.

Processing power

As you'll see from the graphs on p94 and p95, there's a correlation between speed and size: the biggest system, the Minisforum Neptune HX100G (see p89), tops almost every chart. That's for the very obvious reason that it's large enough to include both a desktop chip and a discrete (albeit still mobile) graphics chip in the AMD Radeon RX 6600M.

At the risk of stating the obvious, however, speed isn't everything.

Every single one of these mini PCs should keep chugging happily away for five years or more, so why pay for more performance than you need? The other big advantage is running costs. Based on our measurements, for idle and peak power, we've extrapolated the five-year running costs for each of these machines based on current domestic rates. You can see the results on p95.