Hey ozBargainers,
I’m looking for a mini desktop PC to use instead of a laptop for a work from home setup.
Looking for something ideally i5 or i7 12th gen or 13th gen.
Was able to get a price breakdown of $856 for a Lenovo ThinkCenter M70Q Gen 3 Tiny with i5-12400T, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD inclusive of accessories and 2 year onsite support earlier in February through the education store but this price for the same model has gone up now.
Open to other mini PCs like Dell Optiplex, HP ProDesk/EliteDesk (these are much more expensive from what I’ve seen) and Intel NUCs etc.
Not too fussy about the specs either besides an Intel i5 or i7 recent or latest generation.
Would have gone for the Mac mini but already have a MacBook so wanted a windows PC.
Looking to purchase for around or below $1000.
I would appreciate if anyone knows of any deals or promotions around these products as I believe the mini variants of desktops are not much sought after compared to gaming PCs.
Thanks :D
they are pricey unless you were to order them in bulk and can negotiate a better discount. It's cheaper to buy directly from Dell / Lenovo with an education discount than it is to buy from a reseller. You can also try the Dell Outlet once every few days to see if there are customer returned units (in an "As new" or refurbished condition) that might be going for cheap.
USFF PC's are not in high demand amongst home users, they are only sought after in the enterprise and business target market, since they save a lot of space and are easier to manage in an office environment. I personally don't see the appeal of one in the home, since they're oftentimes just restrictive in terms of upgrades and storage capacity, and you are essentially just buying the lower half of a laptop (without the screen) in some cases as they CPU's they come with are low-TDP variants with lower clock speeds.
Intel NUC's and other Nuc-like barebones PC's are a flexible alternative, and a lot of these may already come prebuilt and preloaded with a Windows license.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/tag/mini-pc
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/tag/small-form-factor-computer