12 July 2024

NUCing Around

It's time for a computer switch-out. I needed to take one computer out of service, and that had a cascading effect. I found myself in need of a new computer that is well endowed with USB-B & C ports. Normally I'd tackle this job with a laptop and a USB port extender, but this time I decided to try something new. The concept of what Intel calls the Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, has interested me for quite a while. A NUC is essentially a mini-desktop computer. How mini? Many are small enough to be mounted directly to the rear of a stand-alone monitor. Intel didn't invent the form factor. I believe Apple was there first with their Mini Mac line, but Intel established the form factor in the Windows world. The best way to describe a NUC is that it's a laptop computer, but without the screen, keyboard, trackpad or battery - a single board computer in a small rectangular box that offers lots of ports. You bring your own monitor, keyboard and mouse to the game. A NUC is roughly 5" x 5" x 1.5", small enough to disappear on a ham shack desk, which is precisely what I was looking for. 

Interior of a NUC - a board, some memory, a cooling fan, lots of ports, and that's it!

Intel introduced the NUC back in 2012 and, as invariably happens, as soon as it gained market traction the clone manufacturers piled on. Everyone from Dell to 'China, Inc' got in the game. The competition got so fierce that Intel recently announced that they are selling off their NUC line to ASUS. Newly manufactured Intel NUCs are still widely available, but their pricing reveals a large part of why Intel got chased out of the market. The Intel units, while wonderfully made with top-tier (Intel) components, are roughly twice the price of a 'China, Inc' clone that offers better specs. Corporate America and the (dot)Gov world were OK with forking over $600 for a real Intel NUC with middling specs, but the mom & pop home owners, gamers and embedded system geeks were drawn to the far more reasonably priced clones. The price wars commenced, and the competition simply overwhelmed Intel.  

I can be heartless when it comes to computers. Like I've said before in this blog, I view computers the same way I view toasters; if it stops working it gets tossed and I get something else. However, it's rare I'll buy something new. I view buying computers the same as buying cars - I'm happy to let someone else eat the depreciation. That's why my ham shack is full of computers I've bought used. This allows me to explore the far edges of computing form factors without spending a fortune. And so it was with my new NUC. I found an eBay vendor selling used units with the specs I wanted, but for a fraction of the price of a new one.

There's really nothing much to talk about regarding the specs of this little computer. It's a run-of-the-mill Intel i5 processor unit with 8 GB or RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage. When it arrived I simply plugged in a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, hooked it up to a monitor, re-loaded Windows 11 and loaded up some ham radio applications. No gaming, no video editing. Nothing fancy. It works just as well as the laptop computer it replaced, but frees up a LOT of desk space, allowing me to stack more ham radio junk there.

I really like this small form factor, and I'm thinking about getting a second unit for the other computer in my shack. This time I may violate my long standing rule about buying new. I'm watching some NUC clones for sale on Amazon (the brand is BeeLink), and I'm waiting to see if the price comes down at all during the upcoming Prime Day sale. That would free up an old Panasonic Toughbook for field use. Computers come and computers go here in the W8BYH shack. I think there was a song about that in a Disney movie once. Something about the circle of life...

W8BYH out

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