Beelink S12 Pro Mini PC, Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake- N100(up to 3.4GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM 1TB M.2 SSD, Desktop Computer Support 4K Dual Display/USB3.2/WiFi 6/BT5.2/Gigabit Ethernet for Home/Office

I'm running Channels DVR service as an over the air DVR for my whole house. I didn't want to run Channels off my desktop as I'd rather not leave my power hungry desktop running 24/7. I considered getting a Raspberry Pi, but this seemed cheaper and more powerful. This N95 based Beelink Mini PC perfectly fit the bill. Running at most 25 watts I'm not as concerned about it running 24/7 and the quad core processor has no problem handling the Channels DVR software and easily powers through commercial detection. It's also quiet, runs fairly cool, and came with Windows 11 pre-installed. I'm running this headless and just remote in when needed. For my use 8G of RAM and the 256GB SSD are good enough as I was able to easily add a 2.5" drive for video storage. This would also work well for a home theater setup as it can be mounted behind the TV and it's so small you could even take it with you when you travel.With dual 4K HDMI, four USB3.2 ports, gigabit Lan, WiFi, and Bluetooth, this is also attractive as a desktop replacement for light usage such as email, web browsing, and word processing. When it came to installing Windows updates, it really ground to a halt and took a long time to install, so I'm not sure how well it would work for more than basic tasks.--Update:After running this 24x7 for over 5 months I'm still happy with my purchase. It runs on average from 10-12 watts and has no problem recording multiple show simultaneously while watching another show. While I still would not recommend this as a desktop replacement, it has worked great as a DVR server and I'm even running a small home intranet site off of it as well.

The Beelink Mini Pro 12, with some help from Intel, engineered maybe the perfect low cost, low spec but still good PC I have purchased.Only one memory channel, so performance left on the table. Only one pcie lane to the m.2 NVME slot? While most SSDs have four lanes? For maximum throughput, that leaves 75% of your expensive ssd's performance on the table, right? Well, yes, but this already hobbled, almost recycled CPU with one memory channel can't do too much more with many pcie lanes anyway. And, maximum throughput isn't really so useful as a spec for most people. This one lane of pcie will do single thread, queue depth 1 random operations pretty much the same as four lanes. You will not notice anything unless moving/copying large files.The n95 is basically silicon coming off the wafer that did not spec out as a n100. Or an i3 or i5, etc. I don't know this but I bet if you put it under a microscope there will be a lot of fused off e cores and p cores. That is how chips are made, they get binned based on what came out of the oven. It turns out that gracemont "efficiency cores" are still pretty impressive for desktop level browsing, productivity, and in particular, just me here, but for a low end box that will be doing things at the speed of home internet. (Networking at 1gbps or lower speed.)1 Gbps lines up pretty nice with 1 pcie lane, a sata drive, one memory channel. Of course, the 16 overclocked GPU units on this are not for gaming. Probably the n95 are also chips that had fewer successfully baked stream processors, as the n100 has 24 clocked at a lower speed. So it looks like they overclocked the fewer surving cores to save these from ewaste. Again, silicon lottery. But they are both fine. Neither the n100 or n95 are going to game, but fine for what they are intended for, and largely equivalent chips.What are some good things? Gets more life out of an older sata SSD you have laying around, or you buy a sub $200 4tb data drive and keep all your movies on it. Very, very good media player. If you have an older, slower m.2 ssd like an Adata Swordfish or Intel 660P? Those are slow and a fair match for continued "value" use with one pcie lane. Or write papers, do spreadsheets, browse, light photo editing or even video editing (very light, but Intel Quick Sync is pretty impressive), stream Netflix, run BitTorrent or an IPFS node, put a security cam on your desk, all the things (except gaming) that play nice at typical home internet speeds.At the price of $150 to maybe $120, it is a bargain if you have an appropriate work load for it. And that is an amazing price when you consider that 10 years ago an equivalently performant i5 desktop was around 10 times more expensive than this. Moore's law (RIP Gordon) is still doing cool things at the low end of computing and Beelink nailed the compromises to deliver a great low price that makes good use of junk silicon. I laud this, it is actually very green. Although the n100 is 6 watts instead of 15 watts. Get the n100 version to cut power almost in half. But they are running at near double the price.

Set this little bad boy up for a Karaoke computer at the brewery and it works perfectly. No reason to sprang a dime more. Mounts perfectly behind the monitor making the install clean. I would buy it again!

Ok, so the setup with windows 11 on this Mini PC was a nightmare. Constant errors when trying to update, forcing me to make a Microsoft account then errors when I try to login. I had to force restart several times and I'm not sure really how I got into windows at all. There is still a windows update that will not get past 20% no matter how many hours I let it sit for. I almost gave up, returned it and gave it 1 star.However, I was able to get in somehow and format a new 2TB SSD I installed using windows and get the basics working. This thing really started to shine tho when I installed ubuntu to dual boot alongside windows. Now I can run my media server without the hiccups of windows but still have it as an option should I need a windows PC in the future. The fan can get a bit loud but performance wise this thing was lighting fast. I also transfered like 500gb to the SSD that I installed in like an hour or so. It was warm afterward and the fan was ripping the whole time but it was not hot to where i was worried. I may install a thermal pad and heatsink, but I'm not sure if it needs it with the thermal pad that is built it.This thing is solid for the price, and its tiny. Perfect for a mini server. Especially if your going to load linux and really turn it into a real server.