MINISFORUM N40 Mini PC Fanless Silent Desktop Computer 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC Micro PC, Celeron N4020 up to 2.8GHz, 1000M LAN, HDMI&VGA, Support Auto Power On Mini Computer

Buying used: Well, this was kind of annoying. It was stuck in a boot loop. No big deal, Windows 11 installed fresh. The thing killed not one but two monitors in the process, I dont even want to know how. Monitors had to be unplugged and reset numerous times. 3rd monitor was the charm. Sat too long? Need to install fresh. Updates took forever... Opened the shroud up, surprise, coffee or soda on the mother board. In the name of saving money... Perhaps first time starting it up, put it on a standard monitor, the tiny 21:9s I tried did not play nice.The actual product, wow, very impressed with the little guy. After running Andrew-s-Taylor/debloat off of GitHub, the little machine is impressive. Plans are to have a mobile toy crammed in a case with a small KB and screen for noodling around in the wild. I think this thing was the best choice. Thermals are a concern, but I will be buying a little blower fan for it. It does play SOME video games (Minecraft standard settings, Valheim very low settings ran smooth), but that should not be your primary interest with this thing unless you're getting it for a kiddo.Office processing? Absolutely. Youtube and videos? Very much yes.Overall I am very impressed with the 8GB version and would recommend it. Just be prepared to do a little debloat to get it running the best it can. As for buying new, I hope you wont have to deal with what I did.

I got tired of spending $500 to $700 on a new computer that might last only three years, or become otherwise outdated. I thought I would try this instead.I first purchased this two or three years ago, just to do casual computing online. It fulfilled all of my needs. I haven't tried gaming or other techie stuff, I do watch videos on it and MS Office is installed, as well as other software programs. I was pleased with the computer's performance.Then the COVID hit, and I suddenly had to work remotely from home. I used Workplace as a service, provided by my employer, to work within their environment. While using WPAAS, I would minimize and use my own Word and Excel programs. I would also do other work over the web. I worried at first that I was going to crash the computer, but it held up well until I retired. I am really impressed, as I constantly dogged out the computer, and it held up well.So much so that I bought another unit for my wife so she could do the same on her job. She works within her company's office environment, had been for over a year. She uses it every day, as her only computer.I plan to buy the same computer again once my current computer finally dies on me (I'm sure it will eventually). Works very well, excellent value.

I’ve owned several Minisforum products that performed decently, but this one has been a complete disaster. After just a single day, it started to lock up every 30–60 seconds—screen goes blank, it drops off the network, and it even freezes if I’m just sitting in the BIOS. There’s no question this unit is defective.What’s worse is the abysmal customer support: Minisforum responds via email about once a day with useless suggestions that fix nothing. It’s little more than a paperweight right now, and dealing with them has been nothing but frustration. If you’re considering anything from Minisforum, take my advice: steer clear. This experience has been outright terrible.

This item has been a mixed bag for me, but still rates 4 stars.First the thumbs-up stuff.The support is excellent. MinisForum has a presence on the Web and they monitor and respond to the postings regularly. Shout-out to Huang, who fixed my problem and got me all straightened out.Now the thumbs-down stuffI initially connected the mini-PC to an older flat-screen TV via HDMI. Pressed the start button. Saw the MinisForum splash screen with spinning-balls progress indicator. I waited. And waited. And waited. It never moved past the spinning balls. Guess it needs a BIOS update,, I thought, since the company support forum had this prominently on offer in one of their sticky postings. The BIOS update installer and file were easy enough to find on the company website, but the instructions were abysmal. Being a computer guy, I was able to decipher the intentions of the instruction from what was written. But good luck to a non-tech person.After BIOS update, try boot-up again. Same thing. Stuck. So went hunting around the Internet and found a obscure posting somewhere from an old Windows guy which said try booting while connected to a "real" computer monitor using the VGA connector. Tried that, and success! It booted into Windows!Next I let it do all its Windows updates. Well that turned out to be a hassle too. One of the updates failed, and from reading the MinisForum postings, the only way to install this Windows update is to download it from the MinisForum website, configure a USB stick to carry the update, and install it manually via command prompt. The instructions document on how to do this update were even worse than the instructions for the BIOS update, which I did not think was possible. The most egregious shortcoming is that the instructions document failed to mention that you need to name the USB drive "WINPE" for this to work. So, after banging my head against the wall for way too long, back to the Internet. Found this instruction in one of the forum postings. MinisForum - please add this to the instructions document! So after renaming the USB stick and deciphering the "Chinese English" instructions (no disrespect intended, I'm sure their English is much better than my Chinese), I was able to successfully install the Windows update. Again, I cannot imagine a non-tech person being able to doing this.Hold on,not done yet! After a day or two, Windows was telling me that I needed to activate it! Somewhere along the way, the system lost the Windows activation credentials (if they were ever there in the first place?). This one was an easy fix. Posted a message on the company support forum, Huang contacted me, and the activation code he provided me with worked.Well this story does have a happy ending, but it was major aggravation to get there. I am now very happy with the performance of this device. Great price for a mini-pc running Windows 10 Pro, many others come with Win 10 Home.Now that the device is finally set up and working, it does the job I purchased it for:1. An always-on computer to run cloud backup software and to run personal VPN software.2. A media device to stream content to my TV.At the end of the day, I would buy this brand again for two reasons:1. The company has an online presence, actively provides support, and seems to have good intentions in regard to providing good after-sale service. Again, kudos to Huang.2. It comes with Windows 10 Professional, not Home.The one recommendation I would make to MinisForum is this: If you want to sell into North America, you should have a native English-speaker re-write you support documents. I found the poorly-written instructions to be great source of frustration.Advice to any prospective buyer. Patience is key. For any tech work, connect the device to a VGA monitor and do not interrupt any updates. I takes it a loooooooong time to reboot after the Windows update.Regarding HDMI connection causing boot process to hang - that happened only with the one TV, there were no issues with my other TV.