Best mini PCs

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Forget about clearing off desk space for your next desktop PC. Today, the best mini PCs pack the power of a desktop PC into the size of a peanut butter sandwich, or smaller. Whether you're trying to save space at home, fit more computers into your office or squeeze a media server into your entertainment center, there's a mini PC made for you. 

See all of our recommendations for the best mini PCs below.

Apple Mac mini (2018)

(Image credit: Future)

Apple Mac mini (2018)

Specifications

Size (Inches): 7.7 x 7.7 x 1.4
Weight: 2.6 pounds
CPU : Intel Core i3-8100B
Storage: 128GB SSD
Geekbench 3 Score: 12,844

Reasons to buy

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Best Mini PC Overall

Apple took its sweet time updating the Mac mini, but the Mac mini (2018) was well worth the wait. The new Mac mini has a slick new look and a speedy collection of ports, and even offers (a bit) of upgradability. Despite rocking an older 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, the littlest Mac managed to put up numbers that bested better-equipped systems, and offers a surprising amount of power in a pleasantly compact design. It's the best mini PC overall based on our testing.

Azulle Btye3 Fanless Mini Desktop PC

(Image credit: Future)

Azulle Byte3

Specifications

Size (Inches): 5.6 x 4 x 1.5
Weight: 14 ounces
CPU: Intel Celeron J3455
Storage: 32GB eMMC
Geekbench 4 Score: 4,011

Reasons to buy

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Best for Home Theater

The Azulle Byte3 is the best mini PC for home entertainment, with a compact fanless design that will easily fit into your entertainment center. It's a great tool for media streaming and provides a full PC experience on your TV. With an Intel Apollo Lake Celeron processor, it's perfect for streaming 4K video and offers all the connectivity you need with a healthy selection of ports.

The small size of the Byte3 (5.6 x 4 x 1.5 inches) will easily mount to the back of a TV or monitor. The compact design still offers options to upgrade after purchase, and the slick looks means that even though you can easily hide it away, you might not want to. If you want a great mini PC for home entertainment use, the Azulle Byte3 mini is our favorite.

Intel NUC (Hades Canyon)

(Image credit: Future)

Intel Hades Canyon NUC

Specifications

Size (Inches): 8.7 x 5.6 x 1.5
Weight: 4.75 pounds
CPU : Intel Core i7-8009G/AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH
Storage: Bring Your Own

Reasons to buy

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Best for Gaming

Intel’s Hades Canyon NUC is a mini PC that delivers desktop-gaming-grade performance thanks to its Intel Core i7-8009G/AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH hybrid chip, which combines processing and discrete graphics on a single chip. 

If you buy the barebones kit, you’ll need to provide memory and storage, and your own installation of Windows, but this pint-sized gaming machine can go toe-to-toe with an Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti-powered gaming tower, and it even handled a bit of VR.

Azulle Access3

(Image credit: Azulle)

Azulle Access3

Specifications

Size (Inches): 5.5 x 2.36 x 0.76
Weight: 5.12 ounces
CPU : Intel Celeron N4100
Storage: 32GB
Geekbench 4 Score: 4,541

Reasons to buy

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Best stick drive PC

The Azulle Access3 takes our favorite tiny stick PC and makes it even better. With a design small enough to slip in your hip pocket, and flexible enough to be used with any monitor or TV, the Access3 gets a faster processor, speedier USB 3.0 ports and adds Gigabit Ethernet for better performance and connectivity than any other stick PC we've reviewed.

Whether it's for use in your home theater, powering digital signage or just giving you a way to watch Netflix on your hotel TV, the Azulle Access3 is our new favorite stick PC.

HP Z2 Mini G4

(Image credit: Future)

HP Z2 Mini G4

Specifications

Size (Inches): 8.5 x 8.5 x 2.3
Weight: 4.85 pounds
CPU : Intel Xeon E-2176G
Storage: 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD
Geekbench 3 Score: 25,064

Reasons to buy

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Best Mini Workstation

The HP Z2 Mini G4 is an ultrasmall workstation PC, cramming workstation-level components and ISV-certified graphics into a desktop PC that's smaller than some books. Equipped with a beefy 6-core Intel Xeon E-2176G processor, 32GB of RAM and Nvidia Quadro P1000 graphics, the Z2 Mini easily handles workloads that other mini PCs struggle with, and is certified to work with a variety of mission-critical programs, from vendors like Autodesk, Avid, Siemens, Solidworks and Vectorworks.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q Tiny

(Image credit: Future)

Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q Tiny

Specifications

Size (Inches): 7.05 x 7.20 x 1.36 inches
Weight: 2.91 pounds
CPU : Intel Core i5-7500T
Storage: 256GB SSD
Geekbench 3 Score: 10,007

Reasons to buy

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Best Office Mini PC

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q Tiny desktop puts business-grade productivity into a package that’s smaller than a paperback book. It offers all sorts of business-friendly features into it’s small, square chassis, with plenty of ports, speedy Wi-Fi, and options to add an optical drive or even transform the mini PC into an All-in-One desktop using Lenovo’s Tiny-in-One monitors. 

The small size belies the capabilities inside, with configurations that offer up to an Intel Core i7 processor, as much as 32GB of memory, choices of HDD or SSD storage (with Opal-compliant options), and accessories for added functionality.

Acer Chromebox CXI3

(Image credit: Future)

Acer Chromebox CXI3

Specifications

Size (Inches): 5.9 x 5.9 x 1.6
Weight: 1.2 pounds
CPU : Intel Core i5-8250U
Storage: 64GB SSD
Geekbench 3 Score: N/A

Reasons to buy

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Best Chrome Desktop

The Acer Chromebox CXI3 may be the best desktop version of Chrome OS available. Made for educational and professional use, the Chromebox CXI3 delivers everything that’s great about Chrome – ease of use, simple security, and all the online capability you want – in a mini PC that boasts plenty of ports, multiple mounting options, and speedy performance. Plus, it’s cheaper than any similarly equipped Windows machine.

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

(Image credit: Future)

Specifications

Size (Inches): 3.4 x 2.2 x 0.4
Weight: 1.6 ounces
CPU : ARM Cortex A72
Storage: No onboard storage
Geekbench 3 Score: N/A

Reasons to buy

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Best for Tinkerers

The Raspberry Pi ushered in a new era of DIY tech, and the latest model, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, pushes that to new heights with a more powerful processor, 4K video output and an improved part selection. 

The latest model, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B offers enormous value for projects ranging from simple to complex, from its enhanced processing and graphics to offering broad compatibility with older accessories. Whether you buy it alone or in a kit, the Raspberry Pi is hard to beat.

Small and mighty

We put each mini PC we review through a series of tests to determine how it performs. This includes running synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench and 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited for measuring system speed and graphics prowess, respectively. We also use a Spreadsheet Macro test to demonstrate productivity performance, and our File Transfer Test measures the hard drive or SSD's capabilities by copying about 5GB of mixed media files.

To see how well a mini PC plays games, we run relevant games at various resolutions, including 1080p, and record the frame rate. Most importantly, we use each mini PC for several hours, trying out its unique features and any preloaded software. 

Among the best mini PCs we've reviewed are the Apple Mac mini and the Azulle Access3 stick PC.

Brian Westover

Brian Westover is currently Lead Analyst, PCs and Hardware at PCMag. Until recently, however, he was Senior Editor at Tom's Guide, where he led the site's TV coverage for several years, reviewing scores of sets and writing about everything from 8K to HDR to HDMI 2.1. He also put his computing knowledge to good use by reviewing many PCs and Mac devices, and also led our router and home networking coverage. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he wrote for TopTenReviews and PCMag.