In recent years, the best mini PCs have become extremely popular as consumers demand more cost-effective machines that also take up very little space. It’s fascinating to see the different designs manufacturers have come up with to fill this growing market.
And now there’s a new contender for the most portable, unique, and size-efficient mini PC: a keyboard case that houses an entire PC. The Ling Long Foldable Keyboard, on one side is the battery, while on the other side are a motherboard, APU, memory, storage, and cooling system.
But the most shocking thing is the processor it comes equipped with, the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U. It’s an octa-core Zen 4 processor with Radeon 780M graphics, which gives the keyboard PC a significant boost while keeping the motherboard side at a sub-42-degree angle. And if you’re concerned about port selection and connectivity, it has USB Type-C and Type-A ports, along with Wi-Fi 6 support.
The included battery delivers 10 hours of productivity, six hours of entertainment such as video streaming, and four hours of gaming. Multiple configurations are available, including up to 32GB DDR5 RAM and up to 1TB of storage.
When you consider that all of this has been engineered to fit under the hood of such a small, lightweight, foldable keyboard, it’s seriously impressive. It’s the perfect mini PC for office workers who need to lug a laptop to and from work. It’s also ridiculously cheap, starting at just $412 (£321 / AU$611) for the 16GB/512GB model, and $495 (£385 / AU$734) for the 32GB/1TB model.
Mini PCs are here to stay
Instead of manufacturers focusing all their resources on the losing arms race to make the best graphics cards, the best processors, or the best laptops, the focus should be on developing affordable PCs that the average worker can afford and easily transport when needed.
The emerging market for mini PCs is already gaining popularity, as evidenced by the increasing number of releases such as the GMKtec NucBox M6the Miniforum AtomMan X7 Tiand the Geekom AX8 Pro. There is clearly a strong demand for this type of PC, and it is still growing. Why spend exorbitant amounts of money making the most powerful laptops and desktops that yield less and less, when you can spend that effort and development costs on significantly cheaper machines that still deliver incredible performance?
Hopefully we will continue to see this mini PC grow as more manufacturers realize it is a smarter investment. It would also solve the energy crisis that comes with overpowered components and the AI that is driven by that technology.