Those looking to purchase a PC are spoilt for choice. Whether online or at a local mall, offers for laptops or desktops are plentiful. If they are on a tight budget, they can consider buying a used laptop or a used desktop.
Those contemplating a laptop know of the difficulties of getting a good used one at a reasonable price. If a reasonably priced laptop could be sourced, one is never sure of the remaining useful life of the battery even if it works. Furthermore, for obvious reasons, the size of the screen of laptops are necessarily small compared to a monitor.
Many of us have a monitor at home still working well even as our last desktop PC has retired. Even those without a monitor knows that a second TV set could double up as a monitor, some even offering 4K display capability. Furthermore, the larger size of the monitor or TV makes viewing more pleasurable than a laptop. Therefore it makes much sense to consider a used desktop PC.
There are many choices in terms of size and capability of a desktop, from full sized to the small. This is where the question posed in the title comes into play. Well for a start, the Lenovo M93 Tiny, HP Prodesk 600 G1 Mini or the Dell 9020 micro are all small sized fully functional desktop PCs using Intel 4th generation CPUs. Typically their size is in the range of 17.7 x 17.5 x 3.4 cm. In other words, they are really small and can be mounted behind the TV or unobstrusively on a table.
Now what’s so special about these PCs. For a start, they are also known as business class PCs. This classification comes about as they tend to be used by large corporations and retired after 3 years when their warranties expired. As they are targeted for corporations, they are of higher quality and durability, hence the term business class. The fact is that even after 3 years when they are retired, they still have many years of useful life remaining.
Secondly these PCs orginally come with Windows 7 Professional since they are for business use. As a result, they can be easily upgraded to Windows 10 Professional. A clean upgrade to Windows 10 Professional also allows for the elimination of most of the crapware, ie useless applications installed by PCs manufacturers for use at time of purchase. By swopping original hard disk drives or HDDs with solid state drives or SSDs, the outcome is therefore higher speed and speedy start up.
Another reason why these small PCs make a good buy is that they consume less electricity than normal desktops. The main reason for this is that these PCs use laptop components. Typically these PCs consume less that 65W of power as the CPUs inside are rated at 35W. Compare this with full sized desktop PCs with typical power ratings of 300W and above. The RAM installed are the same as those in laptops, not the desktop RAMS. Even though they have lower electricity consumption, these PCs give you the full power of a desktop computer running Windows 10 Professional.
There are now many generations of these small desktop PCs. However it is recommended that one considers those using 4th generation Intel CPUs or later. Even though the 4th generation Intel CPUs came out in 2014, they are still adequate for most of the normal PC usage. The Lenovo M73, M83 and M93 Tiny all use 4th generation CPUs. The Lenovo M73 Tiny has 2 front USB3.0 ports while the remaining 3 ports behind are USB2.0. The M83 and M93 Tiny are higher specs version with USB3.0 ports in front and behind.
Using 4th generation Intel CPUs too are the HP Prodesk 400 G1 Mini, Prodesk 600 G1 Mini and Elitedesk 800 G1 Mini. The HP Prodesk 400 G1 Mini is the base model with less features that the other 2 models. The premium model is the HP Elitedesk 800 G1 Mini. In newer versions, the HP Elitedesk 800 versions has more advanced features compared with the HP Prodesk 400 versions.
The Dell 3020 micro as well as the Dell 9020 micro also use the 4th generation Intel CPUs. The base 3020 micro is rather spartan but adequate for those with more basic needs. However the Dell 9020 micro has an edge over the HP or the Lenovo. It allows the installation of Windows on a M.2 SATA 2280 SSD thereby allowing another 2.5in HDD or SSD to be fitted for data storage. Although the HP Elitedesk 800 G1 Mini has a slot for a M.2 SATA 2280 SSD, it does not appear to allow the installation of Windows operating system on it. Windows can only be installed on a 2.5in SSD or HDD with the M.2 SATA SSD used for data storage only.
In conclusion, used desktop PC buyers with budget constraints may want to take a look at the small desktop PCs with Intel 4th generation CPUs.
This writeup is by beetlek who offers a wide range of mostly used small desktop PCs and occasional laptops for sale in Carousell Singapore. You can see his offering at this link https://www.carousell.sg/u/beetlek/ or search for user beetlek at Carousell Singapore.