MSI Cubi N ADL Mini PC: Intel Pentium N200, Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt Type-C, Black, Non-OS/Barebone: ADL-019BUS

Great little mini-PC for running a basic Plex, NAS, etc. with an attached hard drive enclosure to the 10Gb USB3.1 port. Runs super low power at 6W (but as others have noted, there is no way to increase the TDP in BIOS, so beware), and is pretty performant. The Quick-Synch video capability is unmatched and transcodes great for Plex streams.Also, I was able to pop a DDR-4 3200 32GB SODIMM into this box no problem - which was great because the max support memory is supposed to be 16GB.

I am a college student learning computer science, not wanting to deal with the headache of dual booting, I needed an affordable mini-PC to learn Kali Linux(Cyber-security) I have the class next semester, but I wanted to get the pc while I had some extra cash, I was able to install it. play around for a few minutes set it up, I turned it off and focused on this semesters work (networking) a few days ago having some free time I booted up the pc and spent the next several hours just trying to get it out of its very limited Bios/UEFI, I finally removed the M.2 card reformatted it, remade my bootable USB with etcher and attempted to download it again. it shows the m.2 storage in the right place but will not boot. I put the card in my laptop and dual booted into kali, I checked the m.2 with tools its fine I unseated and reseated the Dimm (Ram)just for good measure. I found just trying to figure out how to turn off Safe boot was an exercise in stupidity. it works sometimes for no rhyme or reason and the rest of the time its greyed out. I tried with another M.2 card, and it read it as Sata port 1 WTF? I have taken the storage out and reformatted several times and am attempting to reinstall the OS again, at this point I have over 20 hours into trying to get this thing to work (What's your time worth?) Having built several PC's and overall being pretty good with troubleshooting. I have never had a device that was such a pain. I bought MSI because I have used their laptops, motherboards and GPU's there's always something a little Jank, but the quality is usually pretty great. I was so excited when I got this little unit, but of course it breaks outside the repair window, and I'm stuck with a pricey little paperweight. and the dram that doesn't really fit into anything else I own. Buyer beware! Stay away from this model.

Bios options are lacking. I was expecting something better, especially from a reputable hardware manufacturer such as MSI. As one of the three major global system board producers, their bios options within firmware are typically much more robust, and not so limited such as this. At first I was thinking maybe the limited options are related to the N200 platform or chipset, but I've definitely seen other devices with the same CPU from different manufacturers offer more robust configuration.But aside from the limited configuration, the performance is also just not there for me. The device is hard-locked to a lower wattage as it's passively cooled. This has a major effect in 3D gaming. You shouldn't expect much 3D gaming with this, but older games are typically viable on this CPU with higher wattage or TDP. But not so with this.4k YouTube videos play just fine and the system does indeed perform well otherwise. But the hurdles you have to go through just to unlock a slightly higher TDP are quite disappointing. The system doesn't need much more power to perform better. You don't need to run this at 30w just to game. But you do need a sustainable PL2 power curve which keeps GPU clocks boosted and TDP only 1 or 2 watts above the default TDP of 6w.Here is a screenshot of using shady and highly dangerous Chinese firmware hacking tools you will need just to run 32bit old-school classic Skyrim :)You could also try a safer application known as "universal x86 tuning utility" or maybe perhaps you could also use something known as "throttlestop" though be aware as these may be able to bypass certain limitations you still might be hard-locked out of a few other limitations and of course you also have to deal with the thermals generated from this devices suboptimal cooling :)

MSI Cubi N ADL Mini PC w/ Intel Pentium N200 is a low power Mini PC. I understood before buying, so never expected too much from it.Pros:1. Working at low power consumption.2. Faster than I expected.Cons:1. Order of powering on (monitor or mini pc) decided whether boot screen shown up on not.2. I have been using it for 2 days. Encounter 2 incidents while suddenly lost display for no reason. Yes, display came back and became normal after 5s, but there must be some issues.3. Back cover design is terrible. Mini PC came with VISA mount. To mount behind monitor, I should be able to mount towards any direction. But this mini PC's back cover can only be installed in 1 direction, means I can only mount this cubi toward one direction where I cannot reach power switch.-----------------Update:Display issue seems fixed after refreshed BIOS