5 ms·
Are NUCs with batteries unserved market? Just thinking of them as concept. How popular would they be?
by Ekaros 2y ago
Are NUCs with batteries unserved market? Just thinking of them as concept. How popular would they be?
- marxisttemp 2y agoLinus Tech Tips editors spoke briefly on how they’re bringing Mac minis with them to events to edit on the go.
- Ekaros 2y agoI didn't know Mac Minis had good batteries in them. How many hours do they last on full load?
- blacksmith_tb 2y agoThey don't, but they do idle as low a 4W for the whole system[1] so running one off a large portable battery would be possible (if not exactly elegant). 1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/103253 https://support.apple.com/en-us/103253
- kelvie 2y agoYou'd need a battery with UPS-like functionality (and doesn't beep when it's taken off power), otherwise every time you plug and unplug it your mac would restart. Which is surprisingly hard to find for a portable (usb-C) battery.
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoDoes it do that? Why?
- kelvie 2y agoDo you mean why a UPS beeps when it's disconnected from power? I imagine so the user knows it's disconnected. Annoying during a power outage though.
- rincebrain 2y agoI assume they meant why is the power interrupted if it switches from charging to not, and I believe the answer is "it's cutting from just vampire tapping the incoming power to feed outgoing, and it would need either chunky capacitors or to be constantly wearing on the battery to not do that".
- quesera 2y agoYou might be able to hush the beep by holding down the UPS ON button. Works on all APC UPSes that I've tried, at least.
- TheRealSteel 2y agoWhat's the advantage over a MacBook? Supports more external displays or something?
- argsnd 2y agoFor their CES coverage they said they used MacBooks. They just also brought a Mac mini along that they hooked up to fast internet in a nearby e-sports venue that they used as a backup option to remote into and edit videos from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYXh0AdBw-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYXh0AdBw-I
- deadbabe 2y agoYou can probably bring Mac Minis onto a business class airplane seat, plug it in to the HDMI port and edit while you fly.
- snailmailstare 2y agoIt's hard to tell with a lot of NUC style devices whether they support USB PD as the device being charged but I would much rather have one or two USB power banks as my battery/UPS for the NUC, phone and laptops than anything more specific or inverted up to mains, etc.
- bombcar 2y agoNot terribly; as for many use cases buying a whole laptop is cheaper.
- Aurornis 2y agoA NUC with USB-PD input could be powered from a USB-PD power bank. I’d much rather do that than purchase a NUC with a built-in battery. Keeping the two pieces separate makes them easier to repurpose later. Regardless, the market for such a device is relatively small.
- jayd16 2y agoCan they be? I'm not sure they make NUCs designed for mobile power draw without the battery.
- cletusw 2y agoThere are a good amount of lower power ones (e.g. with an N100 CPU) that draw ~15W usually and not that much more at full bore, and some of them are starting to come with USB-PD power inputs (even if they come with a DC power adapter some will accept USB-PD on another port). Look for "PD in" on this sheet for some examples (columns BW-BY): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SWqLJ6tGmYHzqGaa4RZs54iw7C1uLcTU_rLTRHTOzaA/edit?gid=545579282#gid=545579282 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SWqLJ6tGmYHzqGaa4RZs...
- leeoniya 2y agoi have a passively cooled Quieter 4C [1] with N100 and a 4TB [dram-less] nvme [2] and it draws 4.5W total at idle running EndeavourOS w/ KDE Plasma. at full load (Handbrake 1440p transcode) it draws ~10W. i left it at stock bios settings and did not put it into higher TDP mode though, since i use it as an htpc and it mostly idles, i'd rather it stay at more comfortable operating temps. the nvme cost me more than the pc, which for $207 includes 16GB ram, 512GB nvme, and a Win11 Pro license. insane. [1] https://www.amazon.com/MeLE-Mini-Quieter-4C-Astrophotography/dp/B0CP3YL6J7 https://www.amazon.com/MeLE-Mini-Quieter-4C-Astrophotography... [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLDJCBPG/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLDJCBPG/
- javier2 2y agoN100 is ok for video transcoding?
- RainyDayTmrw 2y agoDepending on your exact requirements, Raspberry Pi 5 + case + battery is a configuration that already exists.
- Ekaros 2y agoI could accept Pi, with case, storage and battery in single enclosure. That is singular unit with relevant ports open to use and it being usable while charging.
- esperent 2y agoI've wanted this for ages, Laptop ergonomics are horrible. When traveling I use a portable monitor, keyboard, mouse. Yes it's annoying to travel with all that but worth it not to end my work days with neck pain and a migraine. I need a somewhat powerful GPU for work, so I'm seriously considering buying one of the more powerful handhelds with removable controllers and just taking them off. The screen would be superfluous but it's probably the most powerful travel PC, at least for the price, that's available right now. I don't even need the battery that much. But all the options I've seen for SFF PCs that would fit in a backpack look fragile and I wouldn't feel confident carrying them around often. Plus, they're either expensive (because it's a tiny market) or geared towards office work. On the other hand, the Mac Mini exists and is exactly what I'd want in terms of hardware. Why don't us Linux/Windows folks have this option?
- nine_k 2y agoThere is a bunch of AMD-based tiny boxes for under $1k, and fancier boxes from HP or Zotac with discrete NVidia GPUs for $3-4k. They are somehow larger than a Mac Mini, but still very much the form factor of a small box to push into a backpack.
- vel0city 2y agoPlenty of NUC hardware is pretty beefy, most more tough than most of those gaming handhelds. I've dropped a couple of Intel NUCs down concrete stairs and they only got a few scratches. They've also had really good Linux support for ages, and had Intel's Iris Pro GPUs for a while. Unsure they'd really fit your needs though. AMD sells a number of APU boards though, they've got modern GPUs. Still not breaking any benchmarks though. Also, those gaming handhelds are pretty power and temperature limited. They're often a good bit less powerful than a halfway decent gaming laptop, just a more convenient form factor for portable gaming.
- plagiarist 2y agoFor gaming, I'd also rather have the Steam Brick, I think. You have a large company with strong interest in the drivers for built-in hardware and external controllers all working smoothly. We also know video over USB will just work. And USB-C power so I don't need a barrel connector to travel, not sure where NUCs are at on that one.
- bredren 2y agoSort of niche but some Vision Pro folks are carrying SSDs w travel routers setting them as an SMB and powering the setup with a travel battery. It provides streaming access to from large libraries of HDR content on the go.
- petemir 2y agoSimulaVR will do this (NUC+battery), but on a VR headset.