Thought this might be helpful as a lot of these mini PCs are hitting the used market.

64 points

Nice, but I wish there was a “Reputable Brand” or “Warranty” filter.

A lot of these boxes are made by the same OEM, and branded a thousand different ways under various names specifically for price fixing on large marketplace portals online - different colors, different cases, but same features without a warranty.

A lot of these fake brand names come out of companies who simply change names once they hit a certain number of bad reviews on marketplaces. Same shitty hardware, different brand name. Beelink and Minisforum are legit, but ‘KingHive Pro’ is probably made by ‘MiniKing’, and also sells things under “GamerKing”, for example.

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23 points

Beelink and Minisforum are legit

I wish I knew a lot of this when I first started shopping for a mini PC. I ended up with a Beelink model that I’m quite happy with, but it seems almost luck that I didn’t pick another one, and I would have liked a “reputable brand” search function.

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18 points

Next time, check out Level1Techs on YouTube. Wendell reviews a lot of these devices, and he’ll give pretty good feedback on what’s legit and what’s not. Ho has reviewed MinisForum for years and has consistently recommended them. Just be careful, because he also reviews the more sketchy devices and sometimes recommends them (but with caveats), so don’t assume that because it is covered, that it’s legit.

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4 points

Thanks for the rec! I also love that you presume that there will be a next time, cuz, uh, that’s accurate. These little boxes are powerhouses, I probably want one for a TV set-top box now that all the TV boxes (Roku, Amazon Fire, even Android TV and soon Apple TV) are riddled with ads.

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7 points

Beelink are solid in my opinion, but I was in the same boat, I picked one at random that had the specs I wanted.

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5 points
*

I was mainly looking for used ones like Optiplex, Thinkcenter etc when I made this. Hence those brand filters. Thought they were a much better deal than a beelink, so I guess the site is optimized for that. Oh also can you send the link for the KingHive Pro listing? Might be able to filter out brands like that.

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6 points
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Those were just made up brands, but you can see what I mean if you look through Amazon, eBay, Alibab…etc.

From your own tool you can see these brands stand out:

Some extra context: https://news.risky.biz/risky-biz-news-acemagic-mini-pcs-shipped-with-pre-installed-malware

‘AceMagic’ AKA ‘AceMagician’ AKA ‘AcePuter’ AKA ‘AceMini’ depending on your market.

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1 point

Those amazon links are hand curated, and those are good brands and models. I’ll be on the lookout for those shady brands, thanks!

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26 points

Need to add shipping charges to the price…

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6 points

There’s a free shipping filter, but if you’re not in that country, shipping costs a lot. The solution to that is to add more marketplaces, which I’m going to next. Where are you located?

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1 point

Canada for me!

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5 points

What’s an HHD?

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5 points

Hybrid hard drive. Basically, a hard drive with a large solid state cache.

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3 points

Shipping prices would vary depending on location though, right?

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3 points

Actual shipping would vary depending on location, but sellers are padding the shipping charge so they can display a lower unit price.

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22 points

I really like that it is a static website being updated and built on a schedule from github actions.

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11 points
*

Number of Drive bays is also a neat filter.

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3 points

Unfortunately this info is rarely provided by sellers.

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2 points

I know, which is why it would be extra helpful.

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2 points

I don’t see a filter for drive bays. I’m on mobile so maybe that’s why?

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1 point

I mean I’m suggesting it. There isn’t one.

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1 point
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Oh, the way it’s worded I thought you were calling it a neat filter that already existed.

I agree though. Would be a great filter.

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7 points

Looking great! I think it would be amazing if there are filters for processor generations as well as form factor. Thanks for sharing this tool!

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3 points

Not quite as simple as checkboxes, but the ability is there to some degree!

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2 points

I’ll add gen filters. Form factors are tougher because sellers are inconsistent with them.

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1 point

Hey, I’ve added a generation filter.

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2 points

Amazing stuff. Thank you so much!

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