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A mini PC (or miniature PC, nettop, or Smart Micro PC) is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, legacy-free
desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...
computer designed for basic tasks such as
web browsing Web navigation refers to the process of navigating a Computer network, network of web resource, information resources in the International World Wide Web Conference, World Wide Web, which is organized as hypertext or hypermedia. The user interfac ...
, accessing web-based applications, document processing, and audio/video playback. The word ''nettop'' is a
portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.
of '' network'' and ''
desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...
''. It is the desktop counterpart of the
netbook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...
. Modern ( 2020) mini PCs or
small form factor Small form factor (SFF) is a classification of desktop computers and for some of their components, chassis and motherboard, to indicate that they are designed in accordance with one of several standardized form factors intended to minimize the vo ...
PCs can be much more powerful, being equipped with high-end laptop components or mid-range desktop components. Compared with ordinary desktop computers, nettops are not only smaller and less expensive, but they also consume much less power. For example, CompuLab's fit-PC2 consumes no more than 8 watts of power whereas a typical desktop would easily consume more than 100 watts of power; consequently, nettops require significantly less cooling and may even be completely fanless. Some do not have an optical disk drive and use a
solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...
, making them completely silent. The tradeoff is that the hardware specifications and processing power are usually reduced and hence make nettops less appropriate for running complex or resource-intensive applications.


Hardware

There are several platforms that are primarily intended for nettops and netbooks: * Intel's Atom platform * Nvidia's Ion platform * Intel's Core platform * AMD's APU platform * VIA's Trinity Platform There are several mini PC platforms: * Apple
Mac mini Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is one of the company's four current Mac (computer), Mac desktop computers, positioned ...
* Intel / ASUS NUC Some nettops have also adopted
system-on-a-chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with memory, input/output, and dat ...
designs. Although many major parts such as chipsets, video cards and storage devices can also be found on desktops, the CPUs that are put inside nettops are the fundamental component that differentiate them from normal desktops. The list below contains a range of hardware components that a typical nettop may be assembled from. * CPU *:
Intel Atom Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is m ...
,
Intel Core Intel Core is a line of multi-core (with the exception of Core Solo and Core 2 Solo) central processing units (CPUs) for midrange, embedded, workstation, high-end and enthusiast computer markets marketed by Intel Corporation. These processors ...
(
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...
) *: VIA Nano and VIA C7 processors (x86) *: AMD APU (x86) *: AMD Geode (x86) *: ARM Cortex-based CPU ( ARM) *:
Loongson Loongson () is the name of a family of general-purpose, MIPS architecture-compatible, later in-house LoongArch architecture central processing unit, microprocessors, as well as the name of the Chinese Fabless manufacturing, fabless company (Loo ...
( MIPS) * GPU *: Intel GMA 950 *: Intel UHD Graphics *: S3 Graphics Chrome *: GeForce 9400M G (integrated into MCP79MX; Nvidia Ion platform) *: AMD Radeon HD 6310 *: ATI Radeon HD 4530 *:
PowerVR PowerVR is a division of Imagination Technologies (formerly VideoLogic) that develops hardware and software for 2D and 3D rendering, and for video encoding, video decoding, decoding, associated image processing and DirectX, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and ...
* Chipset *: 945GSE and 945GC Express chipsets *: MCP79MX (integrated GeForce 9400M G GPU; Nvidia Ion platform) *: VIA VX800 IGP Chipset * Storage devices *: 2.5"
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...
*: Solid-state drive (SSD) * Network *:
Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
and/or
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
* I/O ports *: LAN,
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...
, video out, audio out
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
's Atom processor has been adopted by several hardware manufacturers, such as ASUS, MSI, and Sony, for nettops. Nvidia has also released its first generation ION platform, which puts GeForce 9400M Motherboard GPU alongside the Atom processor to provide better
high definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ( ...
playback ability and lower power consumption. In addition, Nvidia has announced that it will support VIA's CPUs this year. To further reduce the manufacturing cost and improve power efficiency, many manufacturers and start-up companies have chosen to use CPUs that were originally targeted at embedded computing devices such as AMD's Geode and ARM Cortex-based CPUs.


Operating systems

Many net-top models are x86-processor-based and as such are capable of running standard PC OSes. There are also operating systems designed specifically for nettops and other machines in the same performance class. Some high-end nettops are capable of running
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...
.
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
, Android,
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...
, and
Raspberry Pi OS Raspberry Pi OS is a Unix-like operating system developed for the Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers. Based on Debian, a Linux distribution, it is maintained by Raspberry Pi Holdings and optimized for Raspberry Pi hardware, with low memo ...
are other options. Although Google's Android was originally designed for
smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
s, it has also taken a seat in the nettop market.


Market

Nettops fell into Intel's category of "Basic PC", which usually cost from $100 to $299.CNet article
/ref> Intel described nettops as a large potential market at that time. Nettops were said to be able to serve as an affordable first computer for people in developing countries, or as an environmentally friendly choice as a secondary computer for people in developed countries.Netbooks and Nettops New category of emerging Internet Devices
/ref>


See also

*
Netbook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...
* SFF *
Internet appliance An Internet appliance is a consumer device whose main function is easy access to Internet services such as World Wide Web, WWW or e-mail. The term was popularized in the 1990s, when it somewhat overlapped in meaning with an information appliance, ...
and
Thin client In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-Computer performance, performance) computer that has been Program optimization, optimized for Remote desktop, establishing a remote connectio ...
*
Plug computer A plug computer is a small-form-factor computer whose chassis contains the AC power plug, and thus plugs directly into the wall. Alternatively, the computer may resemble an AC adapter or a similarly small device. Plug computers are often configu ...
*
Tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...
* PC-on-a-stick * Desktop form factor * Chromebox and
Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...
* AMD APU and
Intel Atom Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is m ...
*
Cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...


References


External links

*
Approximate computer power usages list
by the Univ. of Pennsylvania (archived 3 June 2009) * Russian portal o
Nettops.ru

''Mini PC''
on ''robadainformatici.it''. {{Computer sizes Personal computers Appropriate technology Cloud clients de:Netbook#Nettop