Don't Buy A Laptop, Get THIS Instead

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]About a year ago, I bought myself a 400 lb laptop thinking that, you know, it's portable. I can use it in bed. I can use it downstairs or I can take it to college. So, I could have got a decent computer for 400 lb, but instead, I got a worse experience just for the portable form factor. And yeah, I never took it anywhere. If you are thinking about buying a laptop, please ask yourself first, are you going to be jumping from different cafes and going to college with your laptop or is it going to sit at your desk 24/7? Now, if the answer to the second question is yeah, then I have an alternative option for you. So, this is the Soyan NQI mini PC, which they kindly sent over to me. And I can promise you that if your laptop is going to stay on your desk, this mini PC is going to be an instantly better option for you. Now, with most laptops at this price point, you're going to be getting an Intel Celeron or an Intel Pentium.

[00:00:54]This 250 lb mini PC, however, has an Intel i3 1215U. That's a modern six-core CPU. My model has also got 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage, but there are, of course, many more storage options. And there are even some different CPU options. Now, this PC is going to handle daily tasks so much smoother than a laptop at the equivalent price point. It can handle 4K video playback on YouTube or in a DaVinci Resolve timeline, although it will, of course, struggle if it's extremely high bit rate video. Something I'd like to mention as well is that this PC from Soyan comes with Windows 11 pre-installed and it is completely bloatware free. So, while a lot of companies going to give you a [music] really bad out-of-the-box experience, Soyan has made it really easy for you and cut down all the bloat on Windows 11 for you. Although, with that being said, I've installed Linux because I don't use Windows personally. If you want to get even more speed out of your PC, then I recommend that you do that as well.

[00:01:51]Unless, of course, you do really need Windows for some particular apps that only run on Windows. Now, this PC does have a fan inside of it, but it never gets really loud Uh at all. If you're playing something like Minecraft, it's going to spin up a little bit quicker, but it's never irritatingly loud or anything like that. It's also got a very healthy selection of ports. You've got four USB ports on the back, one on the front, a headphone jack, and some HDMI ports as well. And it does also have some vents on the back of the PC to dissipate heat. That's a lot more ports than you'll be getting on a laptop. And that's pretty much just as much ports as you'd be getting on a desktop computer as well. As in a full-size desktop, I mean. Now, I know you're thinking of the obvious. Well, a laptop comes with a display built in. I'm going to have to buy my own monitor for a mini PC. And yes, you are right, but you'd be surprised at how cheap monitors have actually gotten now. And with a 300-quid laptop, you will 100% be getting a 60-Hz panel. It'll be 720p or maybe 1080p if you're lucky, and it'll be a TN or an IPS panel. Although, more than likely a TN panel, which is not what you want at all. But, for just 50 pounds, you can get a really decent monitor. Now, personally, I recommend this exact monitor from MSI. You probably can't see it cuz it's a bit blown out, but basically, it's 48 pounds for a 22-in monitor at 100 Hz. And it is 1080p. Now, that plus the 250-pound mini PC, that's 300 pounds in total for the full setup, and that is just so much better than anything you're going to be getting in terms of laptops for 300 pounds. And as for a keyboard and mouse, that's what, 15 pounds? And there is a decent chance that you have a keyboard and mouse lying around somewhere at home already. Or even a monitor or an old TV that you can use. And I'm not just talking to people on a budget, either. This mini PC is genuinely more useful to most people than a laptop. Anyway, enough yapping. I know you're dying to see if it can run any games, so here you go. The first game I'm going to try is Minecraft. Now, the world loading time genuinely impressed me. I created a brand new world and it loaded up in just a few seconds.

[00:03:57]And when we actually load into the world, we are getting a solid 60 FPS.

[00:04:01]Now, I know that doesn't sound too impressive, but you got to consider that I'm running this at 3440 by 1440 resolution. So, that's about 5 million pixels, which is almost 4K resolution.

[00:04:14]So, considering that, that's a very solid FPS for Minecraft at 4K. Of course, you can lower this to 1080p or 1440p, depending on what monitor you're using, and you'll definitely be getting a lot more FPS than what's shown here.

[00:04:26]Although, keep in mind that if you plan to use shaders, of course, you're not going to be able to do that on a computer with no graphics card. So, just bear that in mind. Now, I do apologize because the recording seems to have been messed up here, but if you look at the FPS counter, as you can see, we're maintaining about a 50 to 60 FPS. And again, please keep in mind that this is at ultra-wide 1440p resolution, which is 5 million pixels, >> [music] >> and Roblox doesn't allow you to change this. So, if you have a 1080p or 1440p monitor, then Roblox will run much better for you on this computer. So, hopefully I've convinced you that you really don't need a laptop. You probably should just get a mini PC instead. Now, of course, if you need something that you can take to work or take to college, and you know, you genuinely do need to do that, then of course, get a laptop.

[00:05:10]But, for most people, you probably could just get a mini PC instead, and then get much more value from it. Anyway, that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed the video. Hopefully you found it helpful.

[00:05:19]Thank you for watching, and I will see you in the next one.