Best Mini PCs of 2026

Same money as our top pick, and a different trade. The Pinova P2 runs a four-core Ryzen 5 5425U where the Beelink runs six, so heavy multitasking has less headroom. What it gives back is the most flexible video output in this guide: HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, and USB-C, each rated for 4K at 60Hz and all three running at once.

For the right desk that is the whole argument. Three monitors usually means a dock or a tangle of adapters; here it's three cables and a silver case 1.63 inches tall that weighs about a pound and a quarter. We think plenty of people will trade two cores for that, especially anyone keeping a spreadsheet, a browser, and a call on separate screens all day.

Wi-Fi is the weak spot. The wireless module is the least reliable part of an otherwise solid machine, and the fix is boring: use the gigabit Ethernet port and keep Wi-Fi as a backup. If there's no cable run to the desk, that limitation matters more than the third screen does. Otherwise it's easy to live with — quick to set up, quiet in use, and small enough to mount out of sight.

The Mac mini isn't competing with the rest of this list on price, and it doesn't have to. It's the pick for someone whose work already lives in Final Cut, Logic, or a stack of Apple-only apps, and for anyone who wants a desktop that behaves like a big tablet: instant wake, no driver fights, nothing to set up before you start.

The M6 chip is what you're paying for. Twelve CPU cores, twelve GPU cores, 16GB of unified memory, and 170GB/s of memory bandwidth add up to a machine that scrubs 4K timelines and works through a music library without the fans announcing themselves. Apple leans hard on on-device AI here too, and memory bandwidth is the specification that actually matters when you run a local model.

The hardware is genuinely small for what it does: a five-by-five-inch square under a pound and a half, with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, 2.5-gigabit Ethernet, two front USB-C ports, and a headphone jack. The catch is base storage. 256GB is a couple of large game installs or one serious video project, so if editing is the reason you're buying, price the next tier before you commit.

'Gaming mini PC' is a label worth translating. Inside is a Ryzen 5 7640HS and a Radeon 760M with eight compute units running up to 2,600MHz, which means moderate games at steady frame rates and hardware encoding for streaming — not the settings a discrete graphics card would let you pick. Knowing that, the machine makes sense: it's the one here built to be pushed.

The rest of the specification backs the claim up. 32GB of DDR5 across two SO-DIMM slots, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive, dual 2.5-gigabit Ethernet, USB4, and three display outputs with 8K available over USB4. Very little here is soldered or skimped, and the two network ports alone put it in a different class from the budget machines.

We rate it as the pick for someone whose mini PC is a workstation rather than a web browser: gaming, virtual machines, video work, a home lab. If your day is Office and streaming, you're buying headroom you'll never feel, and the SER5 covers that ground for meaningfully less money.

There is a price floor for a mini PC worth keeping, and the E5 sits close to it. Four cores and eight threads from a Ryzen 3 5300U, 8GB of DDR4, a 256GB drive, three 4K display outputs, and two 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports — it's the cheapest complete machine in this guide, and nothing else here bundles as much for the money.

Where we like it most is as a second computer: a kitchen or dorm desk, a machine for a parent, or a headless box running a NAS, a firewall, or network-wide ad blocking, which is exactly what two 2.5GbE ports are for. Browsing, email, streaming, and documents are all perfectly pleasant. The 8GB of memory is what keeps it out of serious multitasking, and it's why we don't hand it to anyone who lives with twenty tabs open.

The caution is longevity. Reliability is the one place the E5 gives ground, with units that stopped working a few months in and a few that arrived dead. The one-year machine warranty with three years of parts coverage is better than most here, but buy from somewhere with a simple return window and keep the box for the first month.

Two HDMI ports is an odd thing to lead with, but it's the detail that makes the M2 Pro S the right machine in a specific room: two HDMI monitors, no adapters, no hunting for a DisplayPort cable. The third output is USB-C, so a three-screen setup works as long as one of your displays takes USB-C.

The rest is a sensible Intel build — a Core i7-1185G7, Iris Xe graphics with 96 execution units, 16GB of DDR4 that expands to 64GB, a 1TB NVMe drive, 2.5-gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and USB4. The drive is the standout. It's the only machine here that arrives with a terabyte at a midrange price, and it saves you shopping for an SSD on day one.

We place it behind the SER5 because the Beelink gives you six cores and 12 threads for less money, and behind the M6 Ultra on raw capability. What it answers with is storage, dual HDMI, and USB4 on a platform that is now a couple of generations old. Buy it for the ports and the drive; buy the others for the chip.

At 368 grams, the C4 SE is the lightest machine in this guide, and that is most of its appeal. It disappears on a VESA plate behind a monitor, which is the point of a mini PC in the first place.

The interesting part is the networking. Two gigabit Ethernet ports on a box this small mean it can drop in as a firewall, a router, or a small NAS, and the HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C outputs let it drive three screens when it's a desk PC instead. The Ryzen 5 3500U and 8GB of DDR4 are enough for office work, streaming, and a few background services, and two SO-DIMM slots let you add memory later.

Where it gives ground is speed and ports. The older Ryzen trails the six-core chips here, and the three video outputs aren't equal — check which one your third monitor needs before you count on three 4K screens. It's not the machine to buy if you keep a lot open at once.

Our read: it's the right purchase for a specific job — a cheap dual-LAN node, a light second desk, a machine that hides behind a TV — and the wrong one as a household's only computer. For that, the extra money on a SER5 buys cores, memory headroom, and storage you'll use every day.