Best Mini PC in 2026: Small Boxes, Serious Machines, One Honest Trap
For most desks in 2026, a mini PC is simply the right computer. The Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 at £577.24 inc VAT arrives with Windows 11 Pro, a keyboard and a mouse, and disappears behind the monitor. That photo up top? The computer is hiding back there somewhere. That is the whole sales pitch.
Your specific question, answered now:
- Best ready-to-goLenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5, £577.24 inc VAT with Windows, keyboard and mouse in the box
- Cheapest that worksGigabyte BRIX N150 at £179.04 inc VAT but read the barebones warning first
- Most power per litreMSI Cubi Z with Ryzen 9 8945HS, a Ryzen 9 in a lunchbox, £464.98 inc VAT
- Gaming?Mostly no, and the sellers who say otherwise are stretching. The honest version
- Minisforum, Beelink?Good boxes, real trade-off. What we tell customers
- The trapHalf the mini PCs on sale are "barebone". What that word costs you
Below: the five kinds of mini PC, what an N150 chip honestly copes with, and the one page of maths that stops barebones stinging you.
Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 i5 Mini PC Black
In stock
£577.24 inc VAT- 14th Gen Intel Core i5 processor with 10 cores and 16 threads
- 256 GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD for fast storage
- 8 GB DDR5-4800 dual-channel memory expandable to 64 GB
- Intel UHD Graphics 730 integrated graphics
- Wi-Fi 6E AX211 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity
- Compact 1L chassis with VESA mount capability
- Windows 11 Pro with TPM 2.0 security
The shortlist
Six boxes from our shelves, £184 to just over £1,000, live prices on the cards. Mind the word “barebone” on some of them; there is a whole section on that below because it catches people weekly.
DELL Pro QCM1250 Mini PC with i5-14500T, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD, Windows 11 Pro
In stock
DELL Pro QCM1250 Mini PC, Intel Core Ultra 7, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD, Windows 11 Pro
In stock
What a mini PC actually replaces
Somewhere around 2023, the boxes got good enough. A palm-sized PC now handles everything an office tower did: browsing with forty tabs, Office, video calls, 4K films, even light photo editing. It does it silently, on a fraction of the electricity, screwed to the back of the monitor where nobody ever sees it. We fit VESA mounts for exactly this, and the reaction is always the same: “where did the computer go?”
What it does not replace is anything with a real graphics card. There is no room in these boxes for one, and no changing that later. Hold that thought until the gaming section.
The honest three-way split we walk customers through weekly. Diagram: Hardvance.
The five kinds of mini PC, one table
“Mini PC” covers five quite different animals, and most bad purchases come from mixing them up:
| Type | Examples | Ready to use? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate tiny | Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny, Dell Pro Micro, HP ProDesk Mini | Yes, Windows 11 Pro included | Offices, families, anyone who wants zero fuss |
| NUC-style kit | ASUS NUC, MSI Cubi, Gigabyte BRIX | Often barebone: add RAM, SSD, Windows | Tinkerers, exact-spec builders, home servers |
| Online-brand boxes | Minisforum, Beelink, GeekOM, GMKtec | Usually ready | Spec-per-pound hunters happy with import support |
| Mac mini | Apple M-series | Yes | Mac people; the quiet benchmark of the class |
| DIY Mini-ITX | Your parts in a shoebox case | You build it | Real gaming power in small(ish) form |
One honest note on the Mac mini, since people will ask: it is a brilliant machine, arguably the box that made this category respectable, and we do not stock it at the moment. If you live in Apple’s world, buy one with our blessing. Everything else below is for the Windows side of the street.
The barebones trap, in one page of maths
Here is the thing that stings people. A chunk of the mini PCs on sale anywhere, including several on our own shelves, are barebone kits: you get the box, the processor and the cooling, and nothing else. No memory. No storage. No Windows. The price looks brilliant precisely because a third of the computer is missing.
The honest maths on our £184 Gigabyte BRIX N150: add 16GB of laptop-style DDR5 (about £179.04 inc VAT), a 500GB NVMe drive (about £35), and a Windows 11 licence if you need one. Realistic total: £260 to £300, plus twenty minutes with a screwdriver. Still cheap, genuinely. Just not £184 cheap.
Nothing wrong with barebones if you know, and plenty right: you pick your own RAM and SSD quality, and it is the cheapest path to exactly the spec you want. The ready-made machines in the next section are for everyone who just wants to plug in and go.
GIGABYTE BRIX N150 Mini PC
In stock
£179.04 inc VAT- Intel N150 processor for responsive multitasking
- Ultra-compact 0.7-litre design for space-saving use
- Supports up to 16 GB DDR5-SDRAM memory
- Expandable storage with 2.5″ HDD/SSD support
- Triple 4K display support for advanced productivity
- Built-in Intel graphics for multimedia capabilities
- Multiple connectivity options including USB-C and Wi-Fi
MSI Cubi NUC 1M Intel Core 7 Barebone Mini PC
In stock
£436.99 inc VAT- Intel Core 7 150U processor with 10 cores and 12 threads
- Compact 0.84L NUC barebone mini PC design
- Supports up to 64GB DDR5 memory across 2 SO-DIMM slots
- Integrated Intel Graphics with support for 4 displays
- Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity
Cheap and cheerful: what an N150 honestly copes with
The flood of sub-£200 mini PCs runs on Intel’s N-series chips, N100 in the older ones, N150 in current stock like the BRIX above. People search “is an N100 mini PC any good” constantly, so here is the counter answer: for browsing, email, YouTube, Office and a home server that runs quietly in a cupboard, yes, genuinely good. For heavy multitasking, big spreadsheets or anything creative, no. It is a four-cylinder engine: brilliant in town, breathless on the motorway.
Our rule of thumb over the counter: N150 for a second PC, a kitchen PC, a TV box or a server. For your main daily computer, spend up to a Core i3 or i5 class box and thank yourself for two years.
The office and family picks: plug in, sign in, done
The Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 is what the corporate world buys by the pallet, and there is a reason: 14th-gen i5, Windows 11 Pro preinstalled, three years of parts availability, and Lenovo even drops a keyboard and mouse in the box. £593 and the family is computing by dinner.
Prefer Dell? The Dell Pro QCM1250 i5 is the same idea with 16GB of DDR5 and a 512GB drive at £723.05 inc VAT and the Dell Pro with Core Ultra 7 takes it to a Core Ultra 7 for £995.10 inc VAT when the spreadsheet person in your life deserves nice things. These are the two brands whose tiny PCs we see come back least, which is the statistic nobody publishes.
Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 i5 Mini PC Black
In stock
£577.24 inc VAT- 14th Gen Intel Core i5 processor with 10 cores and 16 threads
- 256 GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD for fast storage
- 8 GB DDR5-4800 dual-channel memory expandable to 64 GB
- Intel UHD Graphics 730 integrated graphics
- Wi-Fi 6E AX211 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity
- Compact 1L chassis with VESA mount capability
- Windows 11 Pro with TPM 2.0 security
DELL Pro QCM1250 Mini PC with i5-14500T, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD, Windows 11 Pro
In stock
£723.05 inc VAT- 14th gen Intel Core i5-14500T processor with 14 cores (6 performance + 8 efficient)
- 16GB DDR5-4800MHz RAM in single-channel configuration
- 512GB NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD storage
- Intel UHD Graphics 770 with support for 4 displays
- Wi-Fi 6E AX211 + Bluetooth 5.2 + Gigabit Ethernet connectivity
Serious power, tiny box
Two favourites for people who want real muscle without a tower. The ASUS NUC 14 Pro barebone carries Intel’s Core Ultra 7 165H with Arc graphics, the closest thing to a do-everything engine this size, £513.02 inc VAT before you add RAM and storage. And the MSI Cubi Z with Ryzen 9 8945HS is quietly absurd: a Ryzen 9 8945HS, eight full cores, in a box you can hide behind a photo frame, £464.98 inc VAT barebone. We built one up as a shop demo and it renders video faster than towers we sold in 2023.
ASUS NUC 14 Pro RNUC14RVHV700003I UCFF Black 165H
In stock
£513.02 inc VAT- Intel Core Ultra 7 165H processor with 16 cores and 22 threads
- Up to 96 GB DDR5-SDRAM memory with dual-channel support
- Compact UCFF mini PC barebone design with active cooling
- Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity
- Multiple ports including Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1, and USB4
- Toolless access for easy M.2 PCIe SSD upgrades
- External 120 W AC adapter power supply
MSI Cubi Z AI 8M AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS Barebone Mini PC
In stock
£464.98 inc VAT- AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor with 8 cores, 5.2 GHz boost frequency
- Compact 0.9-liter cube chassis for space-saving setups
- Dual 2.5G LAN for network redundancy and enhanced security
- Quadruple display support via HDMI 2.1 and USB4 ports
- Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 for fast wireless connectivity
- VESA mountable design for behind-monitor or wall installation
Gaming on a mini PC, with the marketing removed
The phrase “mini gaming PC” sells thousands of boxes a month, so let us be precise about what you are buying. No mini PC in this class has a real graphics card. The best of them, the Ryzen boxes with Radeon 780M-class graphics like the Cubi Z above, will genuinely run Fortnite, FIFA, Rocket League and most esports titles at 1080p on medium settings. That is real gaming, and for a teenager’s first setup it can absolutely be enough.
What it is not, is a £2,000-tower experience in a £400 box, whatever the listing photos of AAA games imply. Cyberpunk at high settings is not happening. If that is the goal, the honest small-form answer is a Mini-ITX build: a real graphics card in a shoebox case. Dearer and a little larger, but it actually does the thing. Our build guide covers it, our AM4 guide has the budget ITX boards, and the cases below are the starting point.
Minisforum, Beelink, GeekOM and friends
Five and a half thousand UK searches a month for Minisforum alone, so let us deal with it squarely: these online-first brands ship impressive hardware, often the best raw spec per pound in the category, and reviewers largely like them. We do not stock them. The trade-off we watch customers discover later is support: returns to overseas depots, firmware quirks, and warranty processes that test your patience in ways a Lenovo or Dell never will.
Our honest framing: if you are comfortable being your own IT department, the online brands are a fine deal. If the words “RMA to Shenzhen” made your eye twitch, buy the corporate tiny from a brand with a UK phone number, and pay the little extra for the boring safety of it.
Quick answers
Everyday computing: browsing, Office, video calls, 4K media, light photo editing, and home-server duty. A modern mini PC replaces an office tower for those jobs while staying silent and sipping 15 to 65 watts. What it cannot do is serious gaming or GPU work, because there is no room for a real graphics card.
Only lightly. The strongest integrated graphics, like AMD's Radeon 780M in Ryzen-based boxes, handle esports titles at 1080p medium well. For AAA gaming at high settings you need a real graphics card, which means a Mini-ITX build or a tower, not a mini PC.
Yes, within its lane. N-series boxes are excellent for browsing, Office, YouTube, TV duty and home servers, often under £200 barebone. They struggle with heavy multitasking and creative work. As a main daily PC, an i3 or i5 class machine is the better spend.
It means the box ships without memory, without storage and without Windows. You add your own RAM and SSD (typically £70 to £100) and install an OS. The upside is choosing your own component quality; the trap is thinking the sticker price is the finished price.
The Intel and AMD boxes do, and corporate minis from Lenovo, Dell and HP usually ship with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled. Barebone kits need you to install it. Chromeboxes run ChromeOS instead, so check before buying.
The hardware is genuinely strong and the spec-per-pound is often the best going. The trade-off is after-sales: overseas returns and warranty handling that demands patience. If you want the safety of UK-based support, a Lenovo, Dell or HP tiny is the calmer choice. We do not stock Minisforum, so that assessment costs us nothing to say.
Buy a laptop if you need portability, obviously. If the computer lives on one desk, the same money buys noticeably more performance, better cooling and easier repairs in a mini PC, and you pick your own screen and keyboard instead of paying for built-in ones.
Every mini PC we stock, cheapest first, live prices:
ASRock DeskMini H470 Mini PC Barebone, Intel H470, LGA 1200, DDR4-2933, Black
In stock
ASRock DeskMini B860 Mini-Tower PC Barebone, Intel B860, LGA 1851, DDR5, Black
In stock
MSI Cubi NUC 1M Intel Core 5 120U Barebone Mini PC, 14th Gen, NO RAM/Storage/OS
In stock
How we know
Hardvance is a UK shop. We VESA-mount these boxes behind customer monitors, build up the barebones, and field the "why is my £184 PC asking for a hard drive" calls, which is where the barebones section above comes from. Every machine here was in stock when this was written, cards show live prices, and nobody paid for placement. Where the strongest option is something we do not sell, the Mac mini, the Minisforum boxes, we say so.
