Mini PC Windows 11 Pro, DreamQuest Intel N5105 (up to 2,90

Very good for the price. Fan a little noisy, hence their latest product update with silent fan. Noise is very tolerable though. Runs most common desktop applications fine. Triple monitors work well. Also, their customer service is second to none via Amazon. Contacted them last week to ask a question and their response was instant. Overall would recommend this product and company. But please don’t expect top performance from this for gaming etc. The PC is excellent for fit for purpose

The system is a very compact Windows 11 Pro machine, bought as a test machine for software development, offering good portability for external demonstrations, and outstanding connectivity – 3 x HDMI, 2 x Ethernet – would also make a decent entry-level development server (for shared repositories/Git, if not build).

After portability, I also selected it as a test platform for entry-level machines, but it might actually not work well for this because it’s far more powerful than I expected (!). The quad-core CPU (N5105) is excellent, and the built-in GPU is not bad – I was surprised how well one of our game builds ran, though this is not by any stretch-of-the-imagination a gaming machine.

Also experienced some problems at first, however: after the first boot, Windows 11 began blue screening during its initial update, and then the machine completely failed to boot. Eventually established that the M.2 2242 SSD had failed. After replacing the SSD and reinstalling Windows, the system has since operated smoothly. Reaching Tech (the seller/manufacturer) offered good support; replying quickly (through Amazon) and refunding the cost of a branded replacement SSD.

The rest of the machine is largely integrated/SoC, and most of the components are solid, though be aware that the audio interface’s DAC (via headphone port) is practically unusable – notably worse than even your average integrated audio! Not only is there no bass, but also very little middle – I suspect an impedence mismatch. I’d hoped it would be a little better, as we specialise in audio apps, but I’d expected to have to use a USB DAC anyway.

Pros:
+ Excellent quad-core CPU performance.
+ Outstanding connectivity and ports (3 x HDMI, 2 x Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wifi)
+ Smart, very portable design.
+ Solid, responsive machine for many tasks; office, media server, and light software development.
+ Friendly and attentive Technical Support, if things go wrong.
+ Includes Windows 11 Pro with no bloatware.

Cons:
– Initial problems due to SSD failure (may be bad luck, cheap component, or patchy QA, but Tech Support’s response was encouraging).
– Terrible audio quality (expect to use a USB DAC if audio is needed).

Other:
~ Hardware and configuration is stock configuration – e.g. significiantly more BIOS options are visible than your average PC/motherboard; including some that might not be relevant for the machine. Potentially good for tweakers, but looks like a minimally adapted template Aptio firmware. Confident Reaching Tech weren’t expecting end-users to make it this far. 😉
~ Resources (like drivers) can be found online (from the Reaching Tech website), but are disorganised and a bit patchy, and there is very limited documentation (no significant manual). Again, RT probably pitching it as a vanilla Windows machine that works out of the box for end-users.

In summary, despite teething problems, I am pleased with the machine and optimistic it will fulfil its intended use and possibly a few other jobs besides: my four stars represents a machine with the potential of five stars, but possibly a few chinks in the QA for components. As long as you don’t run into problems, it’s outstanding value and the expectation-defying performance means it could easily be a family or office PC – and the connectivity options open up other uses for the more technically savvy.