Carrying on from your small pc's ideas - have you seen this Bee-link pc, Jim? Their web page: https://www.bee-link.com/computer-73493777
That's a pretty impressive spec for the price Mike, I can't find that actual model with the Ryzen 7 4800 on Amazon but it's pretty impressive. Given the fan arrangements I would operate this device standing it vertically as it is drawing air in from the base and the air gap looks pretty small. I have my reasons for liking Lenovo mostly centring around reliability and warranty and build quality but certainly in the UK a wee PC like this would be a great device and pretty impressive graphics capability, I only have one Lenovo Tiny with a graphics card it it's nowhere near as powerful graphics as the Bee-link thing. It also has an incredibly small footprint.
I bought this one about 4 years ago... and it's worked great - they fit nicely on the back of a small tv and don't use much electricity. Unfortunately, it's been sitting in a box doing nothing since I got altruistic about our wifi hotspot. The integrated graphics on ours (Intel J5005) no good for games - so cannot hand down to kids ... and the sound is crap too so couldn't dedicate it my digital piano! AMD 4800U looks ok for light gaming on low res settings.... I don't think I'll ever buy another mini pc as I prefer the flexibility of being able to upgrade graphics etc - also very few repair options where we live Depends what you're looking to use it for and whether future options are important... horses for courses as they say.
I can't afford to buy one at the moment, Jim, but I always look around for when my situation changes.
There are so many options on the specs, John. The running costs are much cheaper than a desktop, as you say.
