Review on Beelink SEi8 Mini PC: 8th Gen Intel i5-8279U, Windows 10 Pro, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB NVME SSD, Dual HDMI, 4K@30Hz, WiFi, BT5.0 by Lucas Hale

I rarely write reviews on Amazon but I had to make an exception for this guy. I am very impressed with this PC. I use it as a replacement for PC and home theater server. When I assembled my previous HTPC, I thought it was pretty snazzy. It came in a beautiful receiver-like body and the 5th gen i5 met all my needs. However, I am downsizing and would like something smaller. It amazes me how small and efficient processors have gotten in the last 8 years. The i5 is fast, quiet and, in normal use, cool enough to be stored in a single-door media center cabinet. The idle temperature varies between 40-50°C. The fan is almost inaudible. Everything inside is neat and comes with single-slot 8g RAM (looks like Micron). An SSD is a regular NVME M.2 drive and it's fast. It's covered with a heat shield in the case, which is nice. Temperatures remain in the 40s. Read speeds are comparable to my main WD Black NVME gaming PC, but write speeds drop slightly. It's significantly faster than a typical 2.5-inch SSD. The case is small, made of plastic and light. I can't believe what this thing is capable of even though it's about 1/10th the size of the PC it replaces. The aluminum lid with the logo has a rather tacky and cheap feel to it, but it's generally benign and doesn't pick up fingerprints/dust like a typical piano black finish. The power supply is light and quite small. The packaging was good and included 2 short HDMI cables if you want to mount it behind or under the monitor. There are 5 USB ports (4 x USB, 1 x USB-C) which is crazy for its form factor. Two HDMI ports on the back for multiple monitor support. I am using a dummy HDMI connector for remote input only. Setup took seconds. Windows 10 Pro is installed, which is great if you plan to use it as a server. Built-in Wi-Fi is great for setup when you're not near the ethernet port. I use this connection to a cheap 4-bay box to run Emby, Sonarr/Radarr, and do local backups on my network. This or transcoding streams from Emby to my phone. It's a solid alternative if you don't want to spend money on a NAS. It's a bit overkill for my needs in this setup, so you might find a cheaper alternative with i3 or Cerelon processors. If you're using this for typical office tasks, you'll have no problem. You're probably better off using Steam to remotely play from a dedicated gaming PC if you plan to use it in your living room for gaming. I bought it at a pretty legitimate discount, but it was actually $469 at the time of publication. I think it's a reasonable price given the current chip shortage and rising prices. I couldn't find a comparable NUC and RAM + SSD barebones kit that was cheaper.