Mini PC’s have been around for awhile, but have really only become useful in the past year or so. Before then you could say that they “technically” worked, but even a help desk tech wouldn’t have wished one on their worst end user. Around a year ago the technology for the tiny PC’s caught up with the idea and they have been decent little boxes. A big issue with the Mini PC’s is that they have been limited to 4GB of RAM. Many had as little as 2GB standard, and the upgrade only got you to 4GB. Frankly for 90% of users this would be fine, but if you planned to deploy Mini PC’s to a large number of end users the worry that lack of RAM might cause issues was real. Thankfully technology has kept improving and sop now you can get Mini PC’s with 8GB of RAM.
I’ve had a minor relationship with Azulle over the past year or so and keep up with their new products. They have sent me demo units in the past, and I honestly would look at using them in the real world if I still had clients to support. Their Byte line of Mini PC’s are nice because they are very small, have low power consumption, and are finless so you don’t have to worry about physical maintenance.
The Byte 3 looks like something I would consider basing a MSP (Managed Service Provider) business off of. For around $300 you get a PC that’s around 5 x 4 INCHES with a quad core processor, 8 GB of RAM, 32GB storage, supports 4K at 60fps, wireless, bluetooth, and 1Gbps Network Card. This is all in a package you could ship to a customer using USPS for around $6!
Think about that for a second as a MSP. If a client’s PC fails instead of sending out a tech you could just cross ship a replacement. Depending on where you’re at you could just use Postmates or such. If you can get down your remote administration this means you could offer MSP services cheaply and efficiently.
Some will say the 32GB of storage is a deal killer, but this is also good from a support angle. There is an SD card slot so you can have the users store their data on that. If a PC fails data recovery is literally popping the SD card out of one Byte 3 and shoving into another. This is without going into most people using cloud based services and so many people do not actually need that much storage anyway.
For add-ons the Byte 3 has a 3 USB 3 ports, 1 USB 2 and 1 USB C. There’s a VGA port and HDMI for connecting a monitor.
All around this looks like a good little box for most environments, and if you only need 4GB of RAM that version comes in at only $189. As always you should only buy one box at first to test it out, and look for reviews elsewhere. I have not personally touched this model, but I can say the previous one had high build quality and worked very well.
Find out more: https://azulletech.com/product/byte-3/
Currently on back order! Anytime a nifty product is release, their’s never enough stock! Maybe when they get a few more in, I’ll pick one up to check it out!