Xiaomi Mini PC Hands-on Review - Mac Mini Rival with Powerful Processor

Intel NUC Mini PCs have been released for many generations, and computer manufacturers such as HP and ASUS also have their own Mini PC products. But what is more interesting is that none of the mobile phone manufacturers has made this type of product. Xiaomi, as a domestic mobile phone manufacturer that set foot in the notebook category earlier, this time they launched their first Mini PC product - Xiaomi Mini PC, how does such a Mini PC perform? And what kind of crowd is suitable for such a product? Let's take a look together.

Design

In terms of appearance, it seems that the overall volume is very small, with a length and width of 112mmx112mm and a height of 39mm. The whole machine is very thin and weighs only 437g.

The main body of the fuselage adopts CNC integrated fine carving process. The main body material of aluminum alloy and bright metal look full of texture, delicate and moist to the touch, and have a certain gloss. The metal shell can also protect the PC No damage.

Disassemble the machine to see the expandability, there are two 8GB DDR4 memory on the motherboard, the memory slot supports up to 32GB memory expansion, there is a 512GB PCIe4. The built-in SSD can be replaced with a new M.2 hard drive, which supports a maximum of 4TB SSD. There is also a SATA interface on the motherboard, which can be connected to SSD, but the speed is definitely far inferior to M.2. It is a good choice to make a warehouse disk.

It is actually not difficult to disassemble and replace the memory and hard disk. You only need to remove the four foot pads at the bottom and remove the four screws to directly disassemble the bottom cover to complete the replacement.

In terms of interfaces, the Mi Mini PC has two Thunderbolt 4 interfaces with a transmission rate of up to 40Gbps. It can be connected to an external high-definition high-resolution display, or an external graphics card dock with powerful performance, or an external hard disk dock. There is no problem at all. If you want to be stronger Higher graphics performance or larger storage can be achieved in this way.

There are also two HDMI2.0 interfaces, which support video signal output up to 4K60Hz, and a total of four USB-A interfaces, including three USB3.2 Gen2 and one USB2.0. There is also a 2.5G network port, which is convenient for connecting to a wired network, and the network experience is more stable.

It is worth mentioning that the Mi Mini PC has a built-in Intel AX211 wireless network card of the same type as the Mi notebook, which can be installed with MIUI+, so that it can be linked with Xiaomi mobile phones, tablets and other devices, making the office more efficient.

Hardware Performance

Performance is the focus of this PC, equipped with a 12th generation Intel Core i5-1240P low-voltage processor, 12 cores and 16 threads design, the maximum turbo frequency can reach 4.4GHz, built-in IrisXe core display, 80EU execution unit, frequency Up to 1300MHz, i5-1240P itself is also a notebook-side processor with relatively low power consumption, so it is more suitable for this Mini PC.

We also conducted a simple performance test on this processor. In the running score of CineBench R23, the multi-core score is 12178 points, which is almost the same as the standard i5-12500H running score on the notebook side, and the single-core score is 1675 points. This score is similar to the performance of the 12th generation i5 on the desktop. The main reason why it can lead the i5-12500H on the notebook side is that the power consumption is relatively higher. The measured power consumption of the package of the CPU can reach up to about 50W. The larger body brings better heat dissipation, and the performance will naturally be excellent.

In the system, you can adjust the power consumption of the processor by yourself to cope with different usage scenarios. The power consumption in the daily quiet mode is about 28W, the power consumption in the balanced mode is 33W, and the performance mode is 40W. Users can open the BIOS by themselves. After setting, the maximum power consumption of 64W can be unlocked, but the heat dissipation will have to be added by yourself.

The running scores of 3D Mark have also passed. Wild Life scored 9458 points, Fire Strike scored 3910 points, and TimeSpy scored 1517 points. The performance of this IrisXe core display is almost at this level, but there is no need to expect too much. It is no problem to use it to play online games every day. If you play some AAA games, you don't have to think about it.

The office-oriented PC Mark 10 test has a comprehensive score of 5286 points, of which the common basic function score is 9515 points, the productivity score is 6993 points, and the digital content creation is 6060 points. It can be seen that daily document writing, or surfing the Internet and some light office work are all There is no problem at all, and the retouching is completely OK, but the video editing will be more difficult.

Conclusion

What about the scene and the applicable crowd? In fact, I think it is quite wide. For white-collar workers who need to complete manuscripts, retouch pictures, etc., they want to have their own computer, and they can play games and watch videos at home. It is actually a good idea. The choice, and this appearance is very delicate, does not take up space on the table, it is also a good choice as a table decoration.

If you have a computer in the company, but you don’t have a computer at home, and you are afraid of working from home, it is also a good choice to have such a Mini PC at home. After all, the price is not too expensive and the volume is not large. It is beautiful and convenient to put on the table. Or to be more extreme, you can carry a portable monitor and take this PC to go out to work, which is also a kind of "notebook computer".

In fact, the product of Xiaomi Mini PC is really interesting. From the first time I saw it, I was deeply attracted by its appearance and texture. I believe that desk lovers will also like it very much. The performance is still relatively adequate, and there is no problem at all when browsing the webpage with code words. The most important thing is that it has built-in memory and hard disk. Compared with some other "barebone systems", it saves the cumbersome steps of purchasing memory hard disk and installing the system. It can be used immediately. I believe there will be a relatively good price. There is also Xiaomi The reassuring warranty is still a product worth considering.