This tiny PC punches way above its weight, and it’s cheaper than you think

Nano PCs are an important piece of the expertise puzzle. You might need a desk with very restricted area. Or perhaps you wish to create a kiosk the place you might want to tuck the pc away from sight. You would possibly even wish to have a “neighborhood” PC in your house (or perhaps your Airbnb), the place visitors can get on-line and do what they should do. 

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Irrespective of the necessity, these tiny PCs are right here to serve. I’ve used many small type issue PCs and most of what I’ve used pales compared to the Xulu XR1 Professional. This system will not be solely the smallest of the tiny PCs I’ve tried, however it’s additionally probably the most highly effective.

The system itself measures a scant 3.5 x 3.5 inches and is barely 2.5 inches tall, making it the smallest AMD Ryzen 7-powered PC ever constructed. Sure, it is tiny. But it surely additionally affords six USB ports, one USB Kind C port, two HDMI ports, and a headphone jack.

The specs

In fact, you are most likely questioning what the complete specs are. Here is the listing:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 8 cores/16 threads.
• GPU: Radeon 8.
• Communicate/mic jack combo with built-in twin mics.
• RAM: As much as 64 GB (mine has 16 GB), which is upgradeable.
• Storage: As much as 2 TB M.2 SSD (mine has 512 GB), which can be upgradeable.
• Massive-volume turbine fan.
• OLED standing show.
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6e, gigabit ethernet, and Bluetooth 5.2.
• HDMI cable and energy cable are included. 

My Xulu XR1 shipped with Home windows 7, however the {hardware} additionally helps Linux, so you possibly can set up any distribution you need. My regular inclination can be to instantly set up Linux, however I opted to see how nicely the machine would energy a useful resource hog like Home windows 11.

I used to be pleasantly shocked. I anticipated the Xulu XR1 Professional to wrestle beneath the burden of Home windows 11, however it seems the machine has loads of energy to just do that. Regardless that I am not a fan of the Home windows OS, I used to be impressed at how nicely the OS carried out on such a small unit. I am used to how nicely Linux runs on small type issue PCs, however my Home windows expertise with these machines tends to veer towards the disappointing.

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So, think about how nicely the XR1 would carry out with Ubuntu or Linux Mint. My purpose was to check that concept, so I inserted a USB drive with Ubuntu Budgie, entered the boot menu, chosen the USB drive as the first boot system, and booted into Ubuntu Budgie. The consequence was that the Xulu XR1 Professional carried out nearly in addition to my common desktop PC, a System76 Thelio. My major desktop did have the benefit of 32 GB of RAM, so it wasn’t precisely an apples-to-apples comparability. Even so, the XR1 Professional did a outstanding job operating a stay model of Linux.

This tiny machine is good for work, leisure, college, and even some gaming. The most effective factor about these tiny type issue PCs is that they are often put in anyplace. And though the XR1 Professional does have a large-volume fan, I by no means heard it operating. I might really feel it spinning and transferring air, however the sound was so minimal I needed to get very shut to listen to the fan.

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So far as worth is worried, the Xulu XR1 Professional will begin at round $299 and max out at round $399. So not solely does this tiny machine punch above its weight, however it’s additionally at a worth level that makes it much more interesting. Having an AMD Ryzen 7 desktop machine at that worth is a discount…irrespective of the dimensions.

Though I do not count on tiny type issue PCs will ever supplant the usual desktop or laptop computer market, these small units actually serve plenty of functions and achieve this very nicely.