The only place I ever encountered these was in the computer labs in Soda Hall at Berkeley. They’re a great fit for an environment like that so there’s one machine for each person without needing the extra space for a traditional tower. But I imagine outside of situations like this where you need something that’s not locked down for programming, Chromebooks have probably taken the lion’s share of the education market.
Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
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Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#112I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
> BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
The issue is, Intel's aiming more upmarket (based on their pricing) for something that doesn't offer a lot more. Intel's done interesting/fun things, such as building the entire motherboard into a single slot sized unit, but going out and buying a Beelink is a better proposition for most people.
If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because they succeeded. They lead the way, they begat a new form factor, and it's won. But the market has grown much more competitive, and it's hard to see what Intel would do to remain relevant & important in this market. Their current efforts are interesting, and even good, but not really enough to clearly differentiate, not enough to command a huge lead in this market, and certainly not at the somewhat above average prices Intel has been asking.
This follows a lot of other Intel examples. Intel left DRAM market in 1985. Intel left SSDs in 2020, in a similar situation to NUCs here: they basically created the mass consumer market, by pioneering NVMe & creating amazingly high-value products that used to be ultra-expensive proprietary botique items.
This seems like a classic Innovator's Dilemna situation, of Intel having a strong hand creating mass-market products that define the industry, but then being chased out by down-market competition, once the offerings really become a true everyday commodity. I'm not sure if there even is another way Intel ought to behave here.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#113I loved using these for dev boxes or even servers, everything was compatible with Linux straight out of the box. Damn. :(
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#114I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
I would bet the majority of Mac minis sold are used as ci/cd servers for iOS and Mac development. I would also bet the Mac mini is the third lowest selling Mac with the Mac ultra and Mac Pro being the least.
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Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#115I want to like these, but they hit the opposite of a sweet spot (sour spot? sore spot?): More expensive than a laptop (which also have a screen, keyboard, touchpad, speakers, etc.) and much larger than a dongle. The true "next unit of computing" now would be something like a Chromebox the size of a Chromecast.
The PC space really needs a new miniaturized case standard. The current ATX ones are too large for current components, and intel nuc is too integrated. Custom mini PC have odd things like long PCI riser cables because the ATX defined connectors are in the wrong place for mini pc builds.
We need a top-to-bottom motherboard and PSU redesign. At minimum, I would like to see something higher than 12v rails so powering GPUs was less ridiculous.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
They sell a case for $40 on their site. Assembly is about as complex as adding Crucial RAM and an SSD to a barebones NUC. For power, you can use just about anything that will deliver 60W+ over USB C. https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case
Interesting... thanks. I was not aware these existed. Also, the mainboards are expensive, but not as expensive as I thought.
The main use case is for users who upgraded their mainboard and want to reuse their old board for a home server or something
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#117Oh, I'm sorry to hear this. :(
I've bought many NUCs over the years. I'm literally sitting in my office right now with 8 NUCs set up -- 1 as a workstation, and 7 as servers performing various tasks. I know people have always complained that they are a bit more expensive than the alternatives, but I'm willing to pay a premium for the excellent Linux compatibility and reliability.
That said, I've been expecting this for quite some time. I doubt the NUC line made a lot of money for them -- their stated goal with NUC was for these machines to be demonstrations of what can be done with their hardware. In their current situation, I'm not surprised that they decided this was needed to increase their focus.
I guess I'll be shopping around for alternatives at some point.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#118I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
The Mac Mini is a totally different market: it 1) runs macOS 2) has Apple Silicon 3) has no competitors for running macOS 4) is the cheapest entry point into iOS development which is a high paying job
So you listed macOS three times, and then your last point is sort of not relevant
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#119nuc board pc lineup is great, we used dozens of those in our multi camera rigs. Hope to find a replacment.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html#@PanelLabel...
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#120Those things were cool. I wanted to buy one for years, just couldn’t find one in person. I was going to screw it to the back of my monitor to get a Linux all in one like setup going
Man. Maybe I should grab one before it’s too late. Why do companies keep killing their coolest products?