Our favourite mini-PC just got a whole lot better
One of the best media centre PCs we’ve ever owned is the Minix NEO Z64, a wonderfully small and reasonably powerful machine that still sits in our AV cabinet hooked up to a TV. Now, though, Minix has upped the ante and released a new micro-sized media machine, the NGC-1.
There some notable differences between the new NGC-1 and its older brothers. For one, this is a far more powerful PC with a decent specification, which includes an 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3150 processor with turbo burst clock speeds up to 2.08GHz, 4GB of DDR3L memory, a 128GB M.2 SSD and a copy of Windows 10 64-bit Home Edition.
There’s a lot more connectivity this time around too, with three USB 3.0 ports, microphone and headphone combo, HDMI 1.4, mini-DisplayPort, gigabit Ethernet and optical S/PDIF. There’s also 802.11ac dual-band wi-fi and Bluetooth 4.2, with the wi-fi being boosted by a pair of screw-on antennas at the rear of the case.
The design is of similar to Minix’s other micro PCs, measuring just 126 x 126 x 28mm.
It’s a remarkably sturdy unit, with a metal-grey case and the Minix logo printed on the top. The base is plastic, with four rubber feet to stand on, but the same high degree of quality and design is apparent throughout.
The combination of 4GB of memory and the Celeron N3150 make for a nippy, energy-efficient machine. Naturally, it’s fanless, which cuts down on the noise levels. And due to the fact that the Braswell CPU only has a TDP of 6W, it never gets too hot, even when it’s under considerable stress.
Using Windows 10 was great, without any performance problems. Viewing full HD media, both via the Ethernet port and wi-fi, was also excellent and without issues.
The HD graphics on the Celeron N3150 is based on the Intel Gen8 architecture, the same that’s used in the Broadwell series of processors. Although the 640MHz clock speed of the GPU won’t be up to running the latest triple-A gaming titles, it does support 4K, H.265 video acceleration without any signs of a struggle – good news for those of you connecting this to your new 4K TVs or monitors.
There’s a good balance of performance and features here. Minix has once again done an incredible job of packing everything into a small and stylish case that’s perfect for every media activity.
The Minix NGC-1 is an excellent micro PC, and one that we’ll quite happily replace our previous Minix NEO Z64 with. It currently costs around £299, but that’s more than reasonable for such a compact media machine. David Hayward
A superb compact media capable PC.