Hi All...
...just wanted to let everybody know that I'm thoroughly pleased with my new mini-PC, a Beelink Ryzen-5 unit with an AMD 5500U CPU. Search Amazon and you'll find several, in the range of $200 to $300 (USD). I paid $229 for mine.
Mine came with Windows-11 pre-installed on a 500G NVME SSD (PCI mode, not SATA - very fast). I'm retired and not a heavy user, so 500G is more than enough for me... in fact, I immediately 'shrunk' the W-11 partition to about 400G, and used the new unused space (about 100G) for a small Linux partition (I'm successfully dual-booting to either.) For those that need more storage space, there is provision, inside the box, to add a standard 2.5" SATA SSD. (Alternately, you could install a larger NVME drive.)
My unit came with 16G RAM, in the form of 2 ea. 8G 'SODIMM' (standard laptop) modules. Again, 16G RAM is more than adequate for my needs, although the unit will accept up to 64G RAM (2 ea 32G modules - ideally both modules should be the same size, to take advantage of dual-channel operation).
Compared to my ancient desktop PC, the new unit is blazingly fast (but not fast enough for heavy gaming). And, of course, it takes up much less desk real-estate, and uses less power to boot. Personally, I'd gladly give up one of the two HDMI video outputs for more rear-panel USB ports, but that's just me. (Easily solved, anyway, with a cheap external USB hub.)
...so, just a heads-up for anyone who might be interested in these.
-Richard
...just wanted to let everybody know that I'm thoroughly pleased with my new mini-PC, a Beelink Ryzen-5 unit with an AMD 5500U CPU. Search Amazon and you'll find several, in the range of $200 to $300 (USD). I paid $229 for mine.
Mine came with Windows-11 pre-installed on a 500G NVME SSD (PCI mode, not SATA - very fast). I'm retired and not a heavy user, so 500G is more than enough for me... in fact, I immediately 'shrunk' the W-11 partition to about 400G, and used the new unused space (about 100G) for a small Linux partition (I'm successfully dual-booting to either.) For those that need more storage space, there is provision, inside the box, to add a standard 2.5" SATA SSD. (Alternately, you could install a larger NVME drive.)
My unit came with 16G RAM, in the form of 2 ea. 8G 'SODIMM' (standard laptop) modules. Again, 16G RAM is more than adequate for my needs, although the unit will accept up to 64G RAM (2 ea 32G modules - ideally both modules should be the same size, to take advantage of dual-channel operation).
Compared to my ancient desktop PC, the new unit is blazingly fast (but not fast enough for heavy gaming). And, of course, it takes up much less desk real-estate, and uses less power to boot. Personally, I'd gladly give up one of the two HDMI video outputs for more rear-panel USB ports, but that's just me. (Easily solved, anyway, with a cheap external USB hub.)
...so, just a heads-up for anyone who might be interested in these.
-Richard
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 11 + Linux (LMDE) - dual boot
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- mini-PC - Beelink ser-5
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 5500U
- Motherboard
- mini-PC