The most DISAPPOINTING Mini PC I've Ever Reviewed - Khadas Mind 

Everyone: khadas has a proprietary docking connector. Whaaaaah Me: ah yes just like they have a proprietary rca jack that does ballenced output... Everyone: whaaaaah it is only useful with the proprietary docks Me: I think it works with any dock with PD charging. Everyone: Whaaaaah price!! Me: if you have a problem with it realize they are not Dell and can not produce this thing at the scale where it can be made cheaply. If it catches on maybe and only then will the price go down.

Can confirm it doesn't fit in a wallet. And believe me, I'm broke.

There was a recent mini pc unveiled which is powered by a single ethernet cable via PoE. That would be cool to cover.

The base system is the SAME price as the Minisforum UM790 Pro Venus with 64GB and 1TB on Amazon. I have one, and it will eat the Mind for lunch, and crap it out for dinner. Yes, it's a bit bigger, but it has All The Things.

Jeff, really appreciate the honest review of this product. It is hard thing to do to point out a products short comings.

For the price of the standard Khadas Mind, you can get a Framework mainboard with the same CPU as the Mind Premium and the Cooler Master case to go with it, giving you more than 0 options at all for memory expansion, and more options for SSDs. Even loading it for bear (in comparison) with memory and storage keeps you under the price of the premium Mind

The glassware and the travel mug + the affordable shipping to those of us who happen to live across the oceans enticed me to grab some, happy to support the channel, love functional merch!

Marketed as an "Apple competitor", designed like an Apple device, thermals like an Apple PC, sold like an Apple product. Khadas is out of their mind if they think this is going to work out for them. 😂

They're charging Apple-level prices... without an Apple-level ecosystem.

Your writing is superb 👍 Another great video. Great presentation and production quality. Khadas Mind . . . locked ecosystem . . . run. *RUN!*

I'll be honest, I'm totally a sucker for any sort of docking solution. In my first real job, I remember getting issued my laptop and the "clunk" of putting it in the docking station and the satisfaction of ejecting it at the day before going home. After a couple of generations of different machines, at some point around 2018/2019, we switched over to USB-C docking stations. One cable for power and every conceivable accessory you'd need for a typical office worker. And now at home I have a monitor with USB-C and power delivery and with one cable change I can flip over between my work laptop, personal laptop, or even a Steam Deck with one easy cable. Modern USB-C is too good of a solution for any other docking system to make sense in anything but the most niche scenario, so I think you're spot on in your critique.

I didn't hear a thing you said. I was mesmerized by that really nice looking glassware you had there.

Its still really cool. I know Khadas from their very intersting audio components. I hope they grow and we get a meteor lake Khadas soon.

Even if you ignore laptops, Minisforums are just gonna slap this thing down. But maybe Minisforum will look at this and standardize some of the ideas here.

Honest Review, Thank You!

I remember this thing from Eta Prime's channel last year. Man, what a sleek little package. It's like a nicer LattePanda. But you're right. For the price, there are more practical options, and not many use-cases that would justify this premium just for the form factor.

I like the form factor, and the idea of it. Having it in place of a work laptop, being able to plop it down into a dock at each desk I would be able to do work at would appeal to me. Love its small size too. But you are totally right; at the same price point you can have a fullsize laptop with maybe expandable ram and such, and also be able to use it anywhere and not just at specific desks with docks in place. And with most laptops now a days you can even use USB-C docks with HDMI out and whatnot which can be had cheaply. My work provided laptop kinda can be cumbersome with all the wires coming out of it to connect to my dual screens, but I live with it. Also a alternative to the Khadas Mind would probably be the Framework laptop motherboard on its own with a Coolermaster mainboard case. Just use whatever 4 framework modules you want, and you can expand the ram and m.2 SSD easily.

I watched this video for your review of All Ways Down, which is currently my go to beer.

Thank you for this. This were exactly my thoughts when I saw their kickstarter campaign - a 1-2 year expiry date funky e-waste.

Wow... when I saw this Kickstart, I thought the price was pretty high for what it was and that proprietary dock format was a turnoff. Hearing that the price went up from the Kickstart changed this from a non-starter to nonsense. Thank you for your perspective and for comparing it with similarly equipped laptops. That really seals this fate and changes it to a niche/vanity product, not a serious and general purpose workhorse.

I was about to purchase Khadas Mind. I can ignore many concerns but the fan noise and such a power limit on that CPU is a deal breaker for me. Thank you!

Spot on. We have thunderbolt docks everywhere and those have been useful for 2 so far and possibly 3 more generations of laptops at work. We can go to meetings and not need extra docks. Laptop is the answer for this solution, maybe making better docking stations.

There may be others but, this is the first review I've seen on this PC that didn't come off as a shill for the company. I looked at this one early on and my conclusion mirrors yours Sir. WAY too expensive for what you get and calling it a "workstation" is a stretch of the imagination. Your honesty is appreciated. This is coming from a (former) Khadas fan.

Khadas: lets build something. Consumers: what is the use case for this? Khadas: we never intended it being used, but doesn’t it look beautiful....

You forgot to mention that it comes with Windows 11 HOME! Last year I bought a Geekom IT12 I7-12650H (10 core 16 thread) w/32G and 1T for $569 U.S. with Windows 11 Pro! I am still happy with it.

All they needed for a docking connector is a thunderbolt port or 2 on the bottom

I do love the form factor... and there's something appealing in not needing to lug around a laptop sized object... but man, you make a good point - I'd never buy this over a laptop with the same features at the same price. The loss of features is just too much. That said, there might be some niche uses for this, just like any mini pc, but there are a lot of other options out there that don't cost so much.

That docking connector reminds me of the expansion slot on the old old Centrino-era IBM Thinkpads. Of course, the laptop was far more useful than this thing.. It actually could work, if it was a pocket sized tablet and not just a mini pc.

For me, the most practical use for a mini pc is in a small footprint desktop unit. There's a legitimate case to be made for a computer that doesn't take up more space than a monitor, like at reception desks or nurse's stations in hospitals. These places often have space at a premium, and having a full-function pc that can attach to the backside of a monitor (using a VESA mount), or to the base, has its place

It might have worked if they backpack it to a Legion Go style system. Missed the boat there.

Saw this reviewed by hardware haven, and had similar thoughts to you. The price being the biggest turn off, proprietary connector second, and the lack of ports on the base model being third. It seems they want to be like apple with the aesthetic and ports, but also realize that pros need more than two usb ports to work well

I think the idea is pretty good, though, the execution is not the best. I dont like the idea of having several systems configured exactly the same way due to eighter portability or power. Being able to dock "the brain" wheterver I want, would be the best thing to ever happen to my tech style. Imagine going out, having the it plugged in on a tablet, later, you put it on a desk to do some real work, then getting home and expanding its graphics capabilities? What a dream... Would be even more "dreamy" if this "brain" could be my cellphone.

Thank you for mentioning the name of the reviewed unit in the title. It seems like it tries to be portable while doing everything with the different docks; and ends up at not doing anything well. For me personally, I suppose I could use it as a media center or a small, low power home server; but the lack of ethernet on the base unit sort of ruins that. There is better stuff available for that purpose.

I’ve recently bought a Beelink Mini S12, it had almost everything I wanted: upgradable (or maxed out) ram, replaceable nvme, space for a sata ssd, less than 200 euro and either an Intel N95 or N100. Ended up being an N95 with 8gb of ram out of a maximum of 16. Nearly perfect. Plus it’s hilarious how just after the first boot Windows was eating 4gb of ram, while Linux running multiple services isn’t even reaching 2gb so the ram upgrade is hardly needed. Plus it’s quiet.

I have here a GMKtec NucBox G3, that thing pretty much plays half of the games. Use it in work pretty not powerful enough as I want it to work with CADCAM or similar. I just can't wait. Back to my Tower beast, I can relax. Well if the NUCbox does provide an update to make it 10 times faster I'm in (guess that not gonna happen). I wonder what this from AMD 7940HX I guess, I will be looking into it.

I loved the sleight of hands at 6:45 😏 I knew Jeff dabbles in magic but sheesh, that was good 😂 Edit: Edited because I write like a drunken amputee.

In a sick way, I enjoyed witnessing him dunk on this machine for about 15 minutes 😂

I really love the look of it and I would definitely buy one if the price was right but I believe they’re asking too much for what it is. Currently it’s out of the price range. I would want to spend for something that has no upgrade path as far as ram

The base unit does have USB-C and USB 3.2. If the traffic lights are with you, up to 10 Gpbs. A USB whatever dongle to ethernet will probably work seamlessly. No idea what speed, but should work. I've got an extremely old Toshible Laptop. A ethernet dongle is faster than the ethernet port on the laptop.

A lot of people ask why the fingerprint reader is on the left when many people are right-handed. I kinda get the proprietary connector, if they have engineered it to take more plug in cycles or reject foreign debris better. But also, I hear Lenovo is embracing Oculink. If you can't use something because it is so proprietary, it's not going to last. The GPU dock flummoxes me, you can get an 'ITX' 4060Ti that would fit in the dock, and then you wouldn't be stuck with all the cost of making and stocking the GPU, also being tied to the custom dock. For $1,000 you can literally build another faster computer with the 4060 inside it. Not their use case, but, uh maybe their use case is too narrow. You make a popular product by doing what everyone wants/needs (even if they can't afford it), then as you get more popular the price can come down.

Yeah at those price points, i agree: When you reach laptop prices, these things are DOA.

This could have worked as a more powerful lenovo m90n/MeLE Overclock4C had they not bothered with the proprietary mindlink (and offloading the IO the aforementioned mini pcs had onboard to the dock) and found a way to incorporate a 2280 slot(s) and/or a sodimm slot. The battery doesn't make sense either for a dockable PC you are probably better off with either a nuc that is going to be shutdown during transport anyways and a handheld PC like the GPD WIN 4 is not much larger than the khadas base unit and probably much smaller with the tablet attachment.

Good review. I think mini pcs that are not portable on the other hand, like the prodesk mini, lenovo mini etc are a good way to get effective compute/power density. Otherwise agreed use-case of portable business-class devices is lacking imo. Gaming is another story.

I wonder that it come down to factory cost to build it. It just a guess plus with compact size. There will be R&D and way to build the mini pc cost different.

think there was a slight mistake in the visuals as you said the premium was an i7 but the text said i5

If it uses Apple philosophy it obviously isn't meant to be user serviceable.

Thought you were going to be wearing that Detroit lions hat

I almost certainly would not consider the Mind for use as a Windows system; however, I can see it being almost perfect for a noob-friendly Linux distro such as Zorin. Equipped with 2 2Tb SSDs, with Zorin installed in LVM mode, it would be ideal for a minimal desktop footprint setup for a novelist like myself.

I saw the ETA Prime video on this and was interested in it until I heard the price. And that was the Kickstarter price. Now completely no longer interested. I can see the use-case where someone often works in an office and then goes home and continues working. Having a basic/GPU/display dock in each location so you just grab the PC from home when you go to work, plug it in, then grab it again when you go home and plug it in is a very enticing idea. But. How many people actually do that? Sounds like a super niche market to me. If it didn't cost as much as a high-end laptop with the main PC unit and a dock, not mentioning multiple docks for my described scenario, sure! With it being $3k+ for the 'usable' (higher end model) unit plus a couple docks and a couple sets of peripherals and monitors, just get a high-end laptop! I don't want to shut down this kind of innovation. It's a super cool idea to me. Just completely out of the range of most peoples' budgets. And the people I see using my idea would be self-employed people with a small offsite office.

I have a laptop I use daily, but I haven't opened its lid in the last 2 years, because I just plug it into docks wherever I go, with displays and input devices always ready to go. When I go to work - I'm forced to take a bag or backpack just to carry it around. A device like the Khadas Mind could be carried around in a belt pouch or even just a big pocket. I like the concept very much, in fact. But yeah, I'd rather have something much more simple - no docking, no battery or other nonsense. Laptop CPU, RAM & SSDs, WiFi+Bluetooth, two USB-C or Thunderbolt ports and nothing else. I don't need USB-A, Ethernet, card reader or anything else, my docks have all of this already. Just be a small computer that I can plug into docks wherever I go.

thats such a shame that it sucks as much as it does because3 they knocked it out of the park with their SBC's(I think they had 2 of them... but I'm not totally sure) even their OS installer (OOO-ooo something or another) got HUGE praises.... I think if it wasn't for their proprietary port it would be a 'maybe' but because of it I would be 100% NOPE.... I know what I'm getting into when it comes to thermals, limited wattage, noise, and lack of onboard ports with a for factor SOOOO thin and small.... but that port and price are just too much to look past..... and the fact that you were able to find that laptop so easily for essentially the same price just tells me these guys aren't going anywhere else with this product (no version 2 next year, no accessories like the screen you showed coming out... ever, and no SALES ) like you said this is a product looking for a use case... but that use is already filled by lappies.... I don't see this going ANYWHERE further and it being discontinued.... no company is perfect, they ll have a miss or two after having a hit.... maybe they think that with their big hit was because of the design and they chose that above all else... and they just didn't realize how much performance would be impacted and the price would be the big factor in sales... because if it stayed the way it is but was $350 it would be a hit.... but they are aiming too high too soon... they need to go back to making SBC's for a while and build up some more experience with markets because they obviously don't know the mini-pc or lappie market AT ALL ... I REALLY hope this doesn't hurt their business too much because this is something that could sink such a new company :(

The only even vaguely potentially interesting application for the Mind is something it's makers aren't ever going to address and the proprietary connectors make it impossible for anyone else to. Slotting them in a bramble configuration. Ie one giant rack with a bunch of these plugged in to all chew on tasks. Another application I like but won't be addressed. Pair with your phone or tablet. Either a physical USB c, dock, or a wireless link. That way the phone is your screen and interface, and the mini PC does grunt work.

When I heard about it and it being able to be stackable, I was interested. But when I saw that you can't stack many of them, it became a No. It should also stay on arm processor.

Dude - while I love khadas, and the mini pc products, you're dead right!! Pricing, power and the negatives. It's a cool THING, just not for me and my computer needs.

I like this concept, the problem is that they're at the price point of Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Apple's corporate computers. You cannot price your hardware the same as established business class hardware, while cutting out much of the features of the Tiny/Mini/Micro serviceability. On almost all of their modes not only is the RAM and SSD serviceable, but so is the CPU and GPU, sometimes even the networking. As a hardware admin i'd consider this for some of my users that never open their laptop, instead just cary it from dock to dock, if it used standardized USB-C(say slotted in from the side into the dock rather than top-down), and came in at a price point around $450-$500, but thats only if the SSD and RAM was replacable and the machine easily serviceable(the major brands usually only have 1 screw to access everything)

I really appreciate that you "keep it real" and tell us that this mini PC sucks. Thank you

Minisforum MS-01 is way more of a Mini PC Workstation compared to this. Granted, it is much larger, but it's RAM Upgradable, has Dual SFP+ ports and Dual 2.5gbps, an 8X PCIE 4.0 slot and three 80mm NVMe connectors. Yes yes bigger, but really as you pointed out Laptops were built for portability, so who's throwing their desktop into their purse? And if you are hauling your mini-pc back and forth, seems like the larger MS-01 would fit just fine in any laptop bag....

When I first saw that I had the same opinions as you had.

So basically its a tablet spec without a screen and a costly dock which you would need to purchase more than one of to make it usable at home and in the office.

I'm trying to figure out who this is meant for. As you rightfully pointed out, for the price you can easily get far better. This really seems like a vanity project and is bringing everything bad about the Mac world to the PC world.

God, I hate this era of soldered RAM. I find it difficult to believe that using socketed individual ram chips in the style of 8-bit computers adds such a significant amount of lag over trying to solder the chips in directly. At least then you could replace and upgrade them. At least my secondhand Lenovo Yoga has 16GB.

what happened at 11:21? I feel the first statement was actually correct

I really like it as a proof of concept, but that's just the level it's at so far. it's not solid enough to put into the workforce yet and not modular enough to earn it's ecosystem. If it's going to limit itself so much there's no reason to not go for another solution be it a laptop or mini pc and if you need to move stations just using centralized storage as much as possible, and if you're using a GPU accelerated solution, you're not often going to be going station to station to complete that project, couple of super niche things I can think of but they'd all just take a small performance hit and use a laptop. I can't think of many that would prioritize how nice it looks (and it does) that wouldn't just gravitate to a proper mac. it's too niche and too limited for the price tag, there's very few companies you could sell this to unless you're already well versed in selling things they don't need.

Can it run Linux?

If this catas Mind PC had ethernet and hdmi 2.1, could be a good gaming capable thin client

Negative reviews are perhaps even more important than positive ones , you save people wasting money

I mean, my 3600 at 4.6 do simmilar to the i5 1340p and its mor than 5 years old

Thanks for the honest review, I personally have not liked any of the Khadas products, they look amazing, but the price/value is terrible, I'm not sure what they are sniffing, or who they think the customer base would be for this gear, but Id rather buy a used USFF from HP/DELL/LENOVO or a a quality SBC from anywhere else, there is already a large stack of very nice Ryzen mini PC's on the market, that would run rings around this thing for less than 1/4 of the price, and most of them are USB-C powered, so if you want it to have a built in UPS, just buy a PD capable battery bank for them :) definitely a product looking for a use case, or even more, a customer....that just won lotto.....and has had half of their brain removed...

Looks like they sacrificed everything (performance, noise, I/O, affordability) for minimal size.

i think you may be confusing terminology, "back-in-the-day" the workstation was a dumb terminal that actually had near no specs. , today its being called/classed as something like a low level server board or heavy-load graphics/cad/compiler/gaming "workstations" theses devices are meant for things like banks/doctors/light-load office work (not for Martha using a i9-14900k and rtx4090 for filling out a notepad document), these are going to be typically connected to a server to do the grunt work. they are the current dumb terminals.

Sadly U are right. It doesn’t make sense to have it, at least I cannot see any reason to

What do we learn from this? 10 liter or less large ITX case, AMD APU or Intel CPU with GPU limit the whole thing to an acceptable power consumption and be happy if the system doesn't weigh more than 2kg. If necessary, there is a bit of improvisation

too bad it kind of sucks.. It physically looks awesome!!

Agree

Cinebench says the 11900H is more efficient that the 1340P How is this even possible (50% more performance while using only 28% more power)

I'm glad I caught this, This computer is currently in my shopping cart.

You can buy TWO mac Minis for the price of this. Then you don't need to carry it between places... When you add in the cost of the docks/etc Then you can have THREE places for the Mac Mini

It sounds like they have followed the Apple pricing model.

We've reached a point where manufacturers are asking for more money simply because "its small and cute".

I really like the look of it, but there;'s just too many negatives. Raptor Lake, noise, soldered RAM, 2230 M2 slots, no wired ethernet at all and high priced is just a shame. They're too small to compete on price, I get that, but I can't help feeling like they'd have been better off using an AMD CPU and making the system just a bit thicker to accommodate standard 2280 drives and SODIMMS. The dock is too expensive and the proprietary connector is also a deal killer. I get not wanting to use the type C connector for docking as it it wears out unbelievably quickly when put in the hands of typical users. I would totally pick one of these up as something to travel with - connect to the Hotel TV, Wireless Keyboard and trackball (or mouse) and you're good to go. As a hybrid work solution, even my users that whine at taking anything heavier than an iPad back and forth, this would be wonderful if not for the Raptor Lake CPU and the noise.

The fact this is marketed as a mac mini killer tells me all I need to know about it, in short, it tells me to stay the heck away from it.

Very cool machine but the cost to performance seems like trash to me.

The price is stupid, but I can see a use case for products like this. If you only carry your computer between office and home office and never use a laptop screen or keyboard a laptop is just bulky and need an bigger bag and so on

All the processing power of a 5700U because of TDP locks, next to no expansion without a proprietary $180 dock or third party dock, fixed ram, and 2030 SSD slots. Basically every poor design decision wrapped up in a fancy aluminum shell. Any idea if Jony Ive had a hand in this?

Cool design but definitely not a Mac killer if it doesn't use a more normal m.2 drive and have upgradable memory.

It's like it's trying to do everything a mini pc/laptop does while combining it with the portability and utility of Samsung dex, but failing at both.

While the concept is nice I've never really been a fan of minimalist systems using proprietary connectors for those very reason's you brought up. While I'm a fan of the early khadas boards their later ones (while adding amazing features) have been really expensive and hit and miss on software compatibility.

You shouldn't need a dock for your desktop, especially just to get an Ethernet port on workstation computer. Just buy a laptop at that point.

I like the idea of this, but it's FAR to expensive for what's offered. and I can **probably** build a PC that and it'll last years longer. sure I like the compact footprint, and the GPU dock. This doesn't make sense to me, along with the basic no further upgradability makes it a hard pass for me

IMO this product is all about portability. It's more like a smartphone sizedlaptop without screen than a mini pc.

I think they are confusing "workstation" with "thin client"...

Yeah could take one look at that and predict the problems. Way too small for that CPU.

My company, a large MSP almost exclusively recommends and quotes AMD systems. The power to performance ratio is far better. Intel ruined themselves with their process node delays and push for power consumption as a "solution" to competing.

nice

Specifically like mini PCs for their laptop or better specs, but for cheaper. This completely flips that around. Rough...

Go Lions!

Really cool looking pc, but yeah, the price just ruins it.

It's crazy how much storage prices have jumped. In August I got 3 of those Kingston 4th gen 2tb drives for $79 each!

Khadas' prices in general have always seemed a little… aspirational.