Beelink S12 Pro Mini PC, Intel N100

I’ve bought 2 so far. Family has bought one as well and is considering a second.

These little PCs are really great for the money. The N100/16gb rips through most daily tasks easily. You can even squeak out a light game or two, but I do not recommend this model for gaming. The S12 Pro includes a VESA mount bracket. More stuff off my desk! On our second unit, I added a 1tb SSD and replaced the included 512 m2 with a 1tb. Total I have 2tb in a tiny PC hidden behind my monitor. Plenty of space for what I need locally.

This PC is perfect for your parents or as a daily driver for web/mail. I’ve seen some people even turn it into a VM/container host which opens up a ton of interesting possibilities with combined with the ability to swap the drives out. (My 3rd S12 Pro may be my new NAS!)

If you are the type that likes to have a single PC for everything they do and it includes video editing or gaming, then look at the other Beelinks that have more power. But if you are like me and just need a silent, low power, low heat solution that is a workhorse, this may be your next computer.

FYI: You will need to contact support if you replace the M2. The Windows key is not embedded in the UEFI. I did this and they responded within 24 hours. If you are installing Linux there are lots of well documented options out there.

TL,DR: So far impressed with only the smallest of warts. So far, would recommend to others.

Long version: Bought this little box to run Pi-Hole and to be a development database server. Was using a Raspberry 3B+ for Pi-Hole which had enough horsepower for it but was too slow for running Firefox for browsing. Hmm, let’s look at the newly announced Raspberry 5. However once I ran the numbers, it looked as though a Raspberry 5 would be ~$150 so why not get a MiniPC which may have more horsepower anyway and I didn’t need the prototyping that Raspberry Pi has.

Was looking for a low-power, probably fan-less, system to leave on as an Internet appliance running various background tasks. Has enough horsepower for me to put aside my notebook (will use it when away from home) and to use exclusively for web surfing, office apps, etc. Looking forward to running PyCharm on it to see how it does. Neat hack on Beelink’s part to use a mobile processor for a lower power system.

For only $170 for 16GB RAM and 512 GB SSD, I was expecting a raw box that I would have to provide an OS for. Was more than a little surprised that it box came up with Windows 11 running on it. Well nice. But of course I changed the system to dual boot between Windoze and Linux. Only issue with setting up the dual boot was setting the system to boot using GRUB, which recognizes both Linux and Windoze, and not the Windows 11 boot manager which only recognizes Windows.

The three warts I’ve seen so far are: 1) most of the asymmetrical, i.e., USB, plugs are upside down when compare to my other devices. Strange. 2) On boot for the first couple of days, wouldn’t recognize that the monitor I am using is a 2560×1440 and instead would use a lower resolution. Seems to consistently recognize the higher resolution now. Then again, I have not been turning the system off. 🙂 3) Have not seen a Windows license key and there is no mention of Windows on either the system’s Amazon web page or on the produce box. Am thinking that the Windoze install may be counterfeit and would not be surprised if it eventually comes up saying that Microsoft is not recognizing the Windows install. Somewhat alright as I will just continue to use the Linux side. 🙂

So a week into it, system is running Windows 11 and Linux without issue. I’ve turned off my notebook. Depending upon how much the database server hits the performance (I doubt it will have little impact as a development server), I may end up getting another one to be my true network appliance and continue to use this as my desktop.

Concerns: great, perhaps to great, bang for the buck. Suggested single quantity for the N100 CPU is $128 and by the time one adds 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, and Windows, currently don’t think there is enough room for quality components. I do NOT want to be using a throw-away system that dies after 24 months. Hoping to come back in a few years and say that the system is still purring along.

As I write this, the system appears to be lagging. Notice my browser is using 260% (out of 400%) of the CPU with four tabs open. Closed three tabs and now using 13%. While lagging, still faster than the Raspberry PI 3B+.

I’m running Channels DVR service as an over the air DVR for my whole house. I didn’t want to run Channels off my desktop as I’d rather not leave my power hungry desktop running 24/7. I considered getting a Raspberry Pi, but this seemed cheaper and more powerful. This N95 based Beelink Mini PC perfectly fit the bill. Running at most 25 watts I’m not as concerned about it running 24/7 and the quad core processor has no problem handling the Channels DVR software and easily powers through commercial detection. It’s also quiet, runs fairly cool, and came with Windows 11 pre-installed. I’m running this headless and just remote in when needed. For my use 8G of RAM and the 256GB SSD are good enough as I was able to easily add a 2.5″ drive for video storage. This would also work well for a home theater setup as it can be mounted behind the TV and it’s so small you could even take it with you when you travel.
With dual 4K HDMI, four USB3.2 ports, gigabit Lan, WiFi, and Bluetooth, this is also attractive as a desktop replacement for light usage such as email, web browsing, and word processing. When it came to installing Windows updates, it really ground to a halt and took a long time to install, so I’m not sure how well it would work for more than basic tasks.

Love this device, works great, easy to set up, does evrything that me expensive lapto does only faster.