MINI PCs in India

anmolkumar10

anmolkumar10

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I was going through some Mini PCs online on Amazon USA website. I found them quite fascinating, especially the new ones with Ryzen 7,9 APUs with 780m iGPUs.
They can handle heavy workloads without taking up much space or power. Also, many AAA games can be played at low settings with the 780m iGPU ones.
The price point is also good in the US. Most of the brands are Chinese but they provide good customer support and after sales services as per the reviews.
You can get some high-end barebones (7840HS, 8845HS, 7940HS) for 400-500 dollars and add around 100-120 dollars for 32GB RAM and 1TB ssd.
They are cheaper than similar tower Desktop builds.
Lower ones are even more cheaper but powerful. Some even have USB4 and Oculink connections for connecting eGPUs for gaming at higher graphics settings.


I was wondering why they are not so popular in India. I see very less posts about mini PCs here at TE as well. I see a few posts for NUCs with weak celeron processors here and there, used for NAS, HTPC etc but I have not seen anyone using it as a replacement for desktop PCs. Even I am using one celeron NUC for NAS but can't do much on it.
Maybe the price point is higher in India due to customs and taxes. Or maybe the market is simply not here in India for these mini PCs.
I couldn't find any Indian company making these except SkullSaints. I don't know about the success of SkullSaints.
Are there any resellers of these MINI pcs in India for brands like BeeLink, Minisforum, etc. or any Indian company?
 
Thank you @aasimenator . Will check these. One more thing, what is the market for these products in India. I want to know if people are interested in buying these to replace their desktops. Are they popular contrary to what I think? Maybe you can give some idea.
 
anmolkumar10 said:
Thank you @aasimenator . Will check these. One more thing, what is the market for these products in India. I want to know if people are interested in buying these to replace their desktops. Are they popular contrary to what I think? Maybe you can give some idea.
Click to expand...
not that popular, and has very little demand. but I think it may have more to do with pricing rather than the product itself, but there is nothing we can do about that, you just have to understand that if you import stuff officially the prices tend to go upwards of 30-40%.
 
aasimenator said:
not that popular, and has very little demand. but I think it may have more to do with pricing rather than the product itself, but there is nothing we can do about that, you just have to understand that if you import stuff officially the prices tend to go upwards of 30-40%.
Click to expand...
That's what I was thinking. The price is the culprit here but nothing can be done for that due to high import duty and taxes.
 
Skullsaints look like a rebrand of Beelink models. Shouldn't importing pre built PC geta 18-20% customs and 18% GST added to original cost and not counting logistics and other costs. PC hardware is always the cheapest in US. Also I feel like demand in India is mostly for laptops as people want a complete device which is good for productivity on the go.

Asus PN53 would be a decent mini PC choice with local warranty and support.
 
ronnie_gogs said:
Skullsaints look like a rebrand of Beelink models. Shouldn't importing pre built PC geta 18-20% customs and 18% GST added to original cost and not counting logistics and other costs. PC hardware is always the cheapest in US. Also I feel like demand in India is mostly for laptops as people want a complete device which is good for productivity on the go.

Asus PN53 would be a decent mini PC choice with local warranty and support.
Click to expand...
Yes, it looks like rebranding. Also, those are cheap models.
IT hardware was added to restricted items for imports last year. So, proper import license is needed for importing them.
 
Apart from emulating games most mini PCs are not really for gaming. The most powerful mini PC right now is probably the M4 Mac mini with 16gb base config which would be a perfect desktop replacement if you only do video editing, photo editing and coding. Connecting eGPU is an option but finding the hardware of the eGPU model is another issue. Best to find miniPC models you are intersted in amazon.in and add them to a wishlist and check on them occasionally. Prices in amazon fluctuation wildly. They clear stocks quite a lot so hope for the best. I got a Elgato Thunderbolt 3 dock for 12k and I have seen its price fluctuate from 29k all the way to 12k when I bought it.
 
anmolkumar10 said:
IT hardware was added to restricted items for imports last year. So, proper import license is needed for importing them.
Click to expand...
exactly, my MiniForums PC's were blocked from being imported because of this. they were asking me for BIS certification, DGFT license among other things. I had to pay 20k in bribes to let them pass it through. even importing laptops, tablets etc. is now banned, you can only import 1 item. if its more than 1 then it will have to be flagged.

the government talks about the ease of doing business, but it also makes it impossible to do any sort of business other then opening tea stalls or road side food stalls, even then you are at the behest of policewala's hafta. it's one thing if these things are manufactured in India and they want to curb imports, but there are no alternatives to these and we pay a heft price for importing them.
 
ronnie_gogs said:
Apart from emulating games most mini PCs are not really for gaming. The most powerful mini PC right now is probably the M4 Mac mini with 16gb base config which would be a perfect desktop replacement if you only do video editing, photo editing and coding. Connecting eGPU is an option but finding the hardware of the eGPU model is another issue. Best to find miniPC models you are intersted in amazon.in and add them to a wishlist and check on them occasionally. Prices in amazon fluctuation wildly. They clear stocks quite a lot so hope for the best. I got a Elgato Thunderbolt 3 dock for 12k and I have seen its price fluctuate from 29k all the way to 12k when I bought it.
Click to expand...
you should check out ryzen APUs with 780m iGPU. It's close to 1650 in performance. You can play many games on 1080p with it.
 
I actually have replaced my gaming desktop by Minisforum UM780XTX + RX6800eGPU (through oculink)
theagilecoder

90K+ Post in thread 'Performance limited by the Apple M1 — more cores, faster cores, or back to x86?'

I think I have had the same predicament as you on the windows side though. Have mostly used many laptops with U series processors(Intel 6th gen, 10th gen, ryzen 4800u-8c/16t) and have been starved of performance or battery or both. Eventually was fed up and just decided to retire both my many laptops and my gaming desktop.
  • For CPU, I jumped like most to MiniPC - Minisforum UM780XTX - Ryzen 7840HS (8C/16T 5.1GHz)- dead silent on full load. Even my gaming laptops used to cry in front of android studio and IDEs, this doesn't. I get 8C/16T, twin Gen 4 m.2 slots, upto 92 gb ram and...
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aasimenator said:
exactly, my MiniForums PC's were blocked from being imported because of this. they were asking me for BIS certification, DGFT license among other things. I had to pay 20k in bribes to let them pass it through. even importing laptops, tablets etc. is now banned, you can only import 1 item. if its more than 1 then it will have to be flagged.

the government talks about the ease of doing business, but it also makes it impossible to do any sort of business other then opening tea stalls or road side food stalls, even then you are at the behest of policewala's hafta. it's one thing if these things are manufactured in India and they want to curb imports, but there are no alternatives to these and we pay a heft price for importing them.
Click to expand...
This is just a new way for extortion by custom officers. Duty is 0 on IT hardware. 18% IGST is there. So, they introduced this so that custom officers get the bribes.
Government is making it tough to do business so that the big players can easily establish their monopoly in every business. There is no manufacturing plants in India for these things so the only way is imports and they made imports almost impossible without bribing. This inflates the price.

Country like USA has no restriction importing these items from China. They have no duty as well. Only around 7% sales tax which is there anyways for any product.
We as a country are doomed till people like these are in government. (which will be the case till eternity).
theagilecoder said:
I actually have replaced my gaming desktop by Minisforum UM780XTX + RX6800eGPU (through oculink)
theagilecoder

90K+ Post in thread 'Performance limited by the Apple M1 — more cores, faster cores, or back to x86?'

I think I have had the same predicament as you on the windows side though. Have mostly used many laptops with U series processors(Intel 6th gen, 10th gen, ryzen 4800u-8c/16t) and have been starved of performance or battery or both. Eventually was fed up and just decided to retire both my many laptops and my gaming desktop.
  • For CPU, I jumped like most to MiniPC - Minisforum UM780XTX - Ryzen 7840HS (8C/16T 5.1GHz)- dead silent on full load. Even my gaming laptops used to cry in front of android studio and IDEs, this doesn't. I get 8C/16T, twin Gen 4 m.2 slots, upto 92 gb ram and...
  • Like
Click to expand...
this is what I am hoping to do in coming days but the prices are keeping me form doing this.
 
anmolkumar10 said:
this is what I am hoping to do in coming days but the prices are keeping me form doing this.
Click to expand...
Yes especially the thing with MiniPCs are the good ones are expensive as AMD mobile cpus are rarer than unicorns. In a thermally constrained space AMD cpus are heads and shoulders above intel (save lunar lake) but gets divided amongst handhelds, laptops and miniPCs, jacking up their prices.
ronnie_gogs said:
Connecting eGPU is an option but finding the hardware of the eGPU model is another issue.
Click to expand...
Actually having built two eGPUs, it is the easier part (as far as its oculink based) than getting a MiniPC with oculink. I got both my oculink eGPU dock for Rs 7-8k each
www.ebay.com

OCuLink High Speed Graphic Card Expansion Dock OCuP4V2 with ReDriver Chip | eBay

OCuLink High Speed Graphic Card Expansion Dock OCuP4V2 with ReDriver Chip SFX Bracket and 0.5m Data Cable. - Supports built-in OCuLink models: for MINISFORUM, for AOOSTAR, for Lenovo, for GPD, for OnexPlayer, etc.
www.ebay.com
and just attached a psu and couple of GPUs from the used market.
However if you want thunderbolt based eGPU, that is indeed an issue.
 
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theagilecoder said:
Yes especially the thing with MiniPCs are the good ones are expensive as AMD mobile cpus are rarer than unicorns
Click to expand...
Still the prices are good in the US. I am trying to get it from US by someone. This would easily replace my ryzen 3600 desktop even outperforming it except for some performance hit using oculink and 3070.

theagilecoder said:
I got both my oculink eGPU dock for Rs 7-8k each
Click to expand...
From the US or shipped to India?
 
doing business in india with transparency, ethical way is very difficult, complex and will run your mental health, life and will give a trauma. we had our business opened in 2020 and with lockdown we got a huge loss, we tried to close our LLP and it was very difficult and took 2years to just close it. small businesses, llp with gst, taxes are mental abuse for us who got nothing from government. NOTHING.

mini pcs are expensive in India with huge taxes. paying 28%-50% import taxes for nothing.
 
anmolkumar10 said:
Still the prices are good in the US. I am trying to get it from US by someone. This would easily replace my ryzen 3600 desktop even outperforming it except for some performance hit using oculink and 3070.
Click to expand...
Thats how I got it too. bought from walmart online and then friend carried it here.
Can confirm no performance hit (even in 1% lows) on both my eGPUs
www.3dmark.com

I scored 15 070 in Time Spy

AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, AMD Radeon RX 6800 x 1, 32768 MB, 64-bit Windows 10}
www.3dmark.com www.3dmark.com

anmolkumar10 said:
From the US or shipped to India?
Click to expand...
The xiwai one just from amazon india. A few months back it was going for 7k. took couple of weeks.
The ocup4v2 from ebay china. no customs luckily. took 3 weeks.
 
theagilecoder said:
Yes especially the thing with MiniPCs are the good ones are expensive as AMD mobile cpus are rarer than unicorns. In a thermally constrained space AMD cpus are heads and shoulders above intel (save lunar lake) but gets divided amongst handhelds, laptops and miniPCs, jacking up their prices.

Actually having built two eGPUs, it is the easier part (as far as its oculink based) than getting a MiniPC with oculink. I got both my oculink eGPU dock for Rs 7-8k each
www.ebay.com

OCuLink High Speed Graphic Card Expansion Dock OCuP4V2 with ReDriver Chip | eBay

OCuLink High Speed Graphic Card Expansion Dock OCuP4V2 with ReDriver Chip SFX Bracket and 0.5m Data Cable. - Supports built-in OCuLink models: for MINISFORUM, for AOOSTAR, for Lenovo, for GPD, for OnexPlayer, etc.
www.ebay.com
and just attached a psu and couple of GPUs from the used market.
However if you want thunderbolt based eGPU, that is indeed an issue.
Click to expand...
Cool didnt know about oculink . I was looking for a thunderbolt dock before.
 
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