GMKtec Mini PC Intel Twin Lake N150 Upgraded N100 16GB DDR4 RAM 512GB PCIe M 2 SSD Desktop

For the first 24 hours, I was really impressed. Really snappy performance, 8 GB of RAM was plenty for simple tasks, and the SSD was capacious at 256 GB, considering the price. The inclusion of Windows Pro made the box almost free! However, after updating to Windows 11 Build 22H3, during the process of applying updates, the computer locked up. After 60 minutes with the computer no longer visible on the network and the keyboard and mouse non-responsive, pulled the power cord. Upon restoring power and turning on the computer, the PC was stuck for hours at the spinning circle during boot. Two more power-cycles and Windows repair interface appeared. Selected Windows Reset, Local Source (wouldn't work with cloud source), Windows began resetting. However, after a restart, computer back to the infinitely spinning circle. :-( If this had proved reliable, I'd have bought a dozen or more as remote monitoring PCs for client networks. But given that I've had good luck with the similarly priced AWOW models, I will not be investing any more money or time in the GMKTek offerings. Update 01-07-2024 ----------------------- Fortunately, GMKTek provides a download for a Windows 11 re-installation ISO. With this and leveraging a fair amount of knowledge of Windows installation options, was able to re-image the SSD. Unfortunately, the product key is invalidated and I had to use a spare Windows 10 product key to re-activate Windows. Unfortunate the GMKTek hasn't worked out the same relationship with Microsoft that Dell has, whereby any Windows 11 ISO used to load Windows onto a Dell OptiPlex results in an automatically activated Windows 11 installation. Bottom line is that after recreating and updating all apsects of the re-installed Windows 11 OS, the PC is back to running normally. I know to steer clear now of some driver updates. The PC has been running for about 36 hours and I'll post an update if that changes in the near future. When this PC works, it represents a great value for the money in terms of hardware specs and a Windows 11 license. However, taking into account the time issue remediation takes and the expertise required, the TCO (total cost of ownership) rises significantly. If I never have to do brain surgery on this device again, I'll still feel the cost was justified based on the performance of this sub-$200 device. P.S. I now make a complete image backup before running/installing ANY updates so I can simply restore the image backup rather than running into yet another Windows 11 re-installation process and the requirement to use/purchase another Windows product key. P.P.S. The WIndows 11 re-installation ISO download was 11 GB and was not a standard Windows 11 installation ISO. This had to be burned to a flash drive (I used a 16 GB USB3 model; I used Rufus to create the bootable UEFI flash drive) and then the GMKTek PC booted with it. Upon boot, I was faced with a terminal window and a couple of choices. The one I chose led to an image/sysprep process that fortunately got the PC bootable once again with Windows 11 Pro. P.P.P.S. Highly recommended --> As soon as you boot the device for the first time, find a tool such as ProduKey by NirSoft and extract and save the Windows 11 product key. Ideally (although I didn't have a chance to test), this key would work if a re-install was ever required. The other option, that I was waiting for until the PC was fully updated, is to create an image backup using any number of tools, including the image backup tool in Windows. Thus, if any of your update processes results in a non-bootable PC, you can simply re-image from the backup and avoid having a non-activated instance of Windows 11. Update 01-12-2024 ----------------------- Vendor reached out proactively and offered some assistance, although I'd resolved the corrupt Windows 11 issue independently. However, that level of customer support is remarkable considering the price of this product and the lack of such support from other vendors with much pricier offerings. Due to this, upgrading the rating to four stars. Update 01-13-2024 ----------------------- Customer support proactively reached out and provided a product key so I could activate Windows 11 and free up my personal product key. GMKtec's proactive reaching out to a customer with issues is almost unparalleled in my experience over 40 years, so despite the issues I encountered, I'm raising my review to five stars. For a product this inexpensive but with excellent performance, providing this level of customer support is laudable. Read more

I got this for my clone hero setup. I occasionally use it for minor computer functions but mostly just clone hero. I should've gotten the one with bigger storage for barely more money but overall this works really well, I was easily able to navigate everything to add the games, and all the songs from the original games with lots of space left. Haven't used it for other games because I'd quickly run out of space. Overall works perfect for clone hero though. Edit: I've now had it for several months. When playing clone hero don't expect crazy high fps. Fps with everything else turned off and settings good is 250-300. That's with no video background also. With a video background it's 150-200 fps. It also randomly slows down and then fast forwards or straight up skips a little. It's usable but a little frustrating when you start to get really good. Id definitely like to have something with more storage and definitely ram because this RAM is showing that just having CH open uses 100% of RAM. Now to the computer aspects. It works totally fine as a normal computer, but gets slow when you start adding other apps. I couldn't use high power computer games and even mobile ones sometimes froze. It also really slowed down opening tabs and stuff and just navigating anything is a little slow. It still works fine but it could definitely use a little more space and processing power. Second edit: I recently started sim racing and was running it on my laptop since I don't have an actual PC, and just for the heck of it I downloaded raceroom on this thing and hooked up my g29 and... It's running pretty much as well as it does on my $1k laptop. I have switched over my setup to this instead because it's easier and runs it basically as well, and basically never crashed, whereas my laptop crashed frequently. This mini PC is way too good for its price. Overall still a good little PC you can use anywhere, and for the price really is remarkable. Yes I have complaints but I will not be reducing my stars because for the price it performs better than I expected. My update is more to let other clone hero players, or people buying this to game, that you probably want a little more than what this has. Although the price is unbeatable if you get it on sale. I got mine for about $120. (After second update this is less true. For most games this does underperform and you'll want something better. But it randomly is really really good at certain games. It runs clone hero AND raceroom better than my main computer. Originally was 4 stars but will now be 5 stars) Read more

Super awesome value, easy setup Need for remote network monitoring device at client’s site. Set auto-on with power failure in BIOS and runs without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse ! Windows 11 Pro. Small and runs cool. Lightweight, Read more

Got this for only one day. Price seems to be very good for a decent quality. Unit is around the same size of a NUC13 which I own, but is substantially lower in weight, and of course also in price and performance. With that said, it provides sufficient performance to be used as a TV box. It works fine in my older HD TV, but it seemed to struggle with my 4K monitor running at 60 Hz. At this point I still don’t know if it was a problem of my monitor or the unit itself. Although not specifically mentioned in the product description, unit comes with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. I’m a Linux person but since Windows is already there, I plan to keep it there for a while. However, I’ve tried running Remote Desktop to a Linux machine to play some videos, but the video and sound got so choppy that it was not workable. The dilemma is that I have some videos in a format that would require me to login to my MS account and perhaps buy or subscribe to some licenses if I were to play these videos in Windows, but I hate doing that, so sooner or later I might just install Linux on this PC. Update: After more use and testing, I’ve come to the conclusion that this PC is under-powered even for 4K videos, but it suffices for lower resolutions. It consistently struggles and stutters while my 6 year old PC with an i5 CPU had no trouble. I have since switched to Linux and upgraded the RAM to 16G, but the conclusion is the same. Read more