Disclaimer: This review is for my personal use of the device, which is very different from many users. I bought Green G5 unit with 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD, Intel N100 CPU.
My purpose: I bought this mini PC to use as proxmox VE and OPNsense soft router, since it has dual INTEL 2.5Gbps ethernet ports, low power usage, compact and small factor. For my use, it is great, and it is working without any problem since the day one.
The unit comes with installed Win 11 pro, power adapter, two HDMI cables (one short, one longer), small plate for behind screen, if you want to attache the unit.
For my purpose, it is great machine for its price, specially compared to similar products which as under power and more than twice the price. I setup the unit as a proxmox VE server, and installed OPNsense router as VM, AdGuard DNS as LXC, and other VM and containers. I have even installed Win 11 pro, but did not tested it yet.
Since I have 800 Mbps Internet plan, I wanted to have dual 2.5Gbps ethernet ports for my home network. Each ethernet ports is being used as WAN and LAN interface respectively, instead of single one LAN port. Also, edited the BIOS setting, so it power ups when there is a power outage (in BIOS, under chipset, PCH-IO Configuration>State after G3, set it to S0 State). Everything is working as just fine for the past 3 weeks.
Pros for my purpose or why I picked this device over others:
-Its price, it was under $200 with discount, which is half of similar purposed devices
-Dual 2.5 Gbps INTEL ethernet ports, and INTEL CPU (INTEL means no driver issue for my purpose)
-More powerful than similar purposed devices, with already installed 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, so it can handle more VM and LXC, rather than being just a router.
-I can use as a standalone server or PC in the future
-It has ready 2.5 inch SSD slot attached to the lid cover, if you want to extend HDD capacity for TrueNAS or other purpose.
-Minimum use of power, compact and very quiet. Put under TV, next to cable modem and WiFi AP, and my wife still has not noticed it yet.
There is no single CON for my purpose. For others, who will use as an office PC or similar work related purpose, here are my two cents:
1. I would not use this unit for creative purposes, editing high MP RAW images or videos, or gaming. Its CPU is not designed for heavy duty tasks.
2. It will handle Office Suit without any problem, so no worries. However, I would buy one of the other models with price range between $250 - $350, which offer overall better performance. With an additional $100 or so, you would get:
- much better CPU performance, may be 3, 4 even 5 times better
- dual RAM slot with max 64 GB ram instead of single 16 GB RAM
- Dual SSD slot with 3000 MBps speed versus single slot with 800 MBps speed in this unit.
- Having dedicated GPU, graphics card versus CPU integrated
| Screen Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
|---|---|
| Max Screen Resolution | 3840 x 2160 Pixels |
| Processor | 3.4 GHz celeron |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 500 SSD |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 512.00 |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ax |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
