This is surprisingly powerful for its size, available in either Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 U variants, with up to 32 GB of LPPDR5x memory and fast SSD gen4 storage. Add in a metal chassis, a 1600p IPS display with pen support, a QWERTY keyboard, a 67 Wh battery, and a good selection of full-size ports, and there’s no surprise this catches a lot of attention in this niche. Yes, yes, it's another Mac. But the Mini, even with the recent inclusion of the M2 chip, is marketed as a general all rounder, and is still (whisper it) not so powerful so as to make short of work of exporting image, video, and other creative output.

And some of the design choices GPD have made make this thing totally unlike anything else. Micro PC, Max Performance The Micro PC is cooled by an internal fan. This isn’t (to my ears) particularly noisy, but it’s audible. If you want to work in total silence you can switch to passive cooling because —awesomely — this thing has a switch to turn the fan off! Another early system, the Kenbak-1, was released in 1971. Like the Datapoint 2200, it used small-scale integrated transistor–transistor logic instead of a microprocessor. It was marketed as an educational and hobbyist tool, but it was not a commercial success; production ceased shortly after introduction. [14] Early microcomputers [ edit ]

The period from about 1971 to 1976 is sometimes called the first generation of microcomputers. Many companies such as DEC, [18] National Semiconductor, [19] Texas Instruments [20] offered their microcomputers for use in terminal control, peripheral device interface control and industrial machine control. There were also machines for engineering development and hobbyist personal use. [21] In 1975, the Processor Technology SOL-20 was designed, which consisted of one board which included all the parts of the computer system. The SOL-20 had built-in EPROM software which eliminated the need for rows of switches and lights. The MITS Altair just mentioned played an instrumental role in sparking significant hobbyist interest, which itself eventually led to the founding and success of many well-known personal computer hardware and software companies, such as Microsoft and Apple Computer. Although the Altair itself was only a mild commercial success, it helped spark a huge industry. After a week of using the GPD MicroPC (with Ubuntu MATE) as a companion device alongside my regular, full-sized computers, I have to say that I totally get it. A big reason why? Graphics acceleration and other essential features, handled in the past by separate chips or bulky cards, have been subsumed under the CPU. Nowadays, miniaturization is getting to the point where you can't go all that much smaller. You need to leave some space for ports to plug in a thing or two. In late 1972, a French team headed by François Gernelle within a small company, Réalisations & Etudes Electroniques (R2E), developed and patented a computer based on a microprocessor – the Intel 8008 8-bit microprocessor. This Micral-N was marketed in early 1973 as a "Micro-ordinateur" or microcomputer, mainly for scientific and process-control applications. About a hundred Micral-N were installed in the next two years, followed by a new version based on the Intel 8080. Meanwhile, another French team developed the Alvan, a small computer for office automation which found clients in banks and other sectors. The first version was based on LSI chips with an Intel 8008 as peripheral controller (keyboard, monitor and printer), before adopting the Zilog Z80 as main processor.

More colourful than most office PCs and with more of a game console vibe, the AD08 might look less out of place in a child's bedroom. But despite looking like a powerhouse on paper, the AD08 doesn’t perform that well when presented with tasks that require heavy multi-threading or raw GPU performance. If i was going to be playing games which rely on precision movement then, yeh., a mouse makes sense. But for mousing about the MATE desktop to interact with Linux apps it’s perfectly decent as it is. Large cheap arrays of silicon logic gates in the form of read-only memory and EPROMs allowed utility programs and self- booting kernels to be stored within microcomputers. These stored programs could automatically load further more complex software from external storage devices without user intervention, to form an inexpensive turnkey system that does not require a computer expert to understand or to use the device.

Don’t dismiss the placement of the touchpad and mouse buttons: when this thing is in your hand, they feel perfectly placed. Micro PC Gaming The HP Stream is a useful little laptop that's portable and comfortable to use. It is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel CPU with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Compared to the best-selling HP Chromebook 11a, the Stream runs Windows 11 rather than the ChromeOS operating system. And while it's a basic laptop that isn’t very powerful and doesn’t offer a ton of space to store files, it still offers a wider variety of apps for you to install since it runs Windows. Fortunately, it has a microSD card slot for some additional storage. Aside from that big performance boost, the Mac Mini is compact, relatively affordable compared to those other Macs, and perfect if you or your business have already bought into the Apple ecosystem. With the 11-inch 10-inch and even smaller-sized options that we’re discussing in this article (which are also known as netbooks on mini-laptops), you’re still getting most of the same features and abilities, but you will have to accept lower-power hardware mostly suitable for basic everyday use and less-so for demanding applications, as well as smaller displays, fewer ports, and more cramped keyboards. Of course, there are exceptions to consider, and at the same time, these computers are highly portable and easy to carry around, offer long battery life, and are generally quite affordable. All these combined make the Win Max 2 a complete mini laptop, and the best such device available in a 10-inch format as of late 2023. It’s pricey, though, as expected given the offered specs and features…