This is the first one that I bought for $120 on sale. I bought a matching stick of 8GB DDR4 for it for $12. It is currently $132. It comes with just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVME. But it has a great case design and it runs very cool with no modifications. Getting to the RAM and the NVME requires the removal of only 4 screws. The bottom fits a little snug so you might need a guitar pick the first time you pull it apart. The 3500u and 3550u Ryzens are far more capable than the Intel n90, n100, and even n150 APUs. There is a minor and solvable iGPU driver issue if you reinstall clean on a new NVME and do not backup the driver that comes with them.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DTP216XS
For some reason the price of DDR4 RAM has taken a huge leap in the last few months. It is literally two or three times as much as it was last Spring. So, I would hold off on that purchase until the price drops back down. The only challenge is that if you can’t find a stick that is a pretty close match they might not run in dual channel mode which reduces your I/O speeds a little. So sometimes times you are better off buying a matched set.
Here is an explanation from Grok.
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_b191d1fd-61a0-42e4-ab74-3fcb55869e06
You might consider spending a little more, currently $178 for a name brand computer with the slightly faster Ryzen 3550u, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVME.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0F9X2BWBK
This one has a thinner case. If you notice that it is running warm you can ventilate it much better if you use a hole saw to cut a hole directly above the fan on the top of the case. There is only about 1/4” between the fan and the case. I have identical unit to this one in a generic brand. It also has an extra LAN port for more serving possibilities.
There are others which are slightly cheaper from generic brands with few reviews although sometimes the reviews are actually for several variations. There were some other tempting choices during Prime Days.
Small used business desktops are an excellent choice as well. I have two HP mini desktops that are about the size of a DVD player, One came from eBay and one from Amazon. They are excellent little computers. Both of mine are now running Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC which actually is an improvement over Windows 10 Pro and will receive security updates until 2032.
Those are pretty cool (as in “Joe Cool”) - hahaha!
How are the vendors’ websites when it comes to support? Prolly not quite up there with Dell and HP?
I have indeed been looking at used business desktops (refurbs). It occurs to me that I might plug “Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC” and lower end Win 11 compatible processors (one at a time) into the search and see what comes up. That’ll probably work better on eBay: For me, searches seem to work a lot better (more “focused”) on eBay than on Amazon.
I already have questions out to several sellers too, and one of those may come back with answers that fit what I’m looking for. (Two already did not.) I’ve also found that pertinent questions can really weed out good sellers vs. bad. ;-)
Huh, I wonder if the overheating issues with these are easily fixed:
The bids just jumped up hugely, but, still...
No, I’m not afraid to chop holes, add heat sinking, etc. In fact, I may be doing that on wifey’s old laptop, someday. It’s a Win 10 Pro machine too, but, it’s low on the priority list, as she has a nice Chrome machine she uses a lot.