GEEKOM Mini A5 in Elegant Rose Gold – NUC Desktop Computer

Well for a start you find yourself wondering if this thing will be any good given the size, but it’s actually fairly capable for most tasks. This tiny computer is very much worth considering. However it’s not without it’s problems, albeit small ones.

One drawback is it doesn’t support automatic power recovery. This can be an issue if you want to use it on cabinet locations. However it does support “wake on pme”, what used to be called “wake on lan”, so if you have it hard wired into the network and send it a “magic packet” (there are many free utilities to do this around the net) it will boot remotely. This might bypass the need for physical access to the machine in order to boot it again.

It performs quite solidly though, despite its tiny size. Better suited to everyday uses like browsing the web watching videos and viewing video content. Slap in an external drive enclosure and this can even act as a download machine or a basic home file server being as under light load the machine uses around 40W of power. Modern video games are out of reach though being as the GPU chip is some seven generations behind now.

Build is fairly impressive though with a metal frame that’s much sturdier than the all-plastic casings of other brands. The hardware shows excellent attention to detail, which is uncommon in this price range. The design includes smart touches, like captive screws on the base, as well as a Kensington security slot that prohibits internal access to the PC while it’s locked. The system’s cooling fan is quiet and barely noticeable under idle operations. I do have concerns about the longevity of it though for 24/7 usage. It might be fine of course, but sourcing a new CPU cooler might prove a tad difficult.

In operation and at idle, the unit consumes between as little a 8W to around 90W, averaging around the 30-40w mark, so it’s not exactly expensive at run. Obviously running lots of applications and driving the CPU and WiFi will increased the power consumption.

Overall, the Mini 5 is constructed superbly and a surprisingly capable basic machine. Even the internal speakers are fairly decent given their size. The inability to recover automatically from a power failure is a bit of a let down, but that can be partially mitigated through a Wake On Lan BIOS setting (see above). I’m going to be running this for a while.