Mini PCs have taken the world by storm in the last few years as powerful components become smaller and cheaper, enabling form factors to shrink.
A recent entrant to the race for the best mini PC is the Firebat Z8, a new model from a little-known Chinese company that promises some very compelling features in a pretty tiny package.
The news comes via Notebookcheck.net (translating a French news website), which says the Firebat Z8 includes the top-end AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS alongside a Radeon 780M GPU, meaning that users will get a lot of bang for their buck.
In terms of connectivity, despite its small size, the Firebat Z8 includes a USB-C port, two HDMIs, two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, two USB-A 3.2 ports, and finally two USB 2.0 ports. All of this means the Z8 supports up to four 4K monitors.
While these specs are welcome, they’re very much in line with other mini PCs on the market right now, and what distinguishes the the Firebat Z8 from its rivals is the price: the model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD costs just $371 (or CNY 2,699).
It probably goes without saying that a powerful PC with top-line processing and graphics costing under $400 is, well, pretty remarkable, and even the more powerful version with 32 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs roughly $450 (or CNY 3,299).
Unfortunately, these are simply conversions of Chinese prices and Firebat has offered very little in the way of pricing and availability elsewhere, but the company’s past products did launch more widely – and at great prices.
Mini in name only
Finding the best mini PC is something we’ve spent a fair chunk of time on, and – perhaps unsurprisingly – the most obvious candidate for most people is the Mac mini, which is massively boosted by Apple‘s custom silicon.
In our testing, the Mac mini (M2, 2023) blew away the competition with its combination of power and tiny form factor, ideal for most small desks. There are questions over how much extra RAM and storage costs, but these are not new or unique to his Mac desktop.
Windows lovers, do not despair: we loved the Beelink U59, an excellent value mini PC that runs a bloatware-free version of Windows 11 and packs a fair punch for its size thanks to Intel chips.
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