I bought into the N100 hype train because of Reddit. Sure its an amazing value, but I hope anyone reading this isn't convinced it's remotely fast. I ended up going with a minisforum ryzen for about 2x the price and 4x the performance.
I was a bit bummed since I wanted to use it as a kind of streaming box, and while it can do it, it is definitely slow.
I got a 16GB RAM 512GB SSD N100 minipc for less than $150 last month. Yes it could be faster (always true for any computer), but I feel I got way more than I paid for. Certainly a much better deal than an RPi 5.
PS. If you need more power than that I have a hard time coming up with a better deal than M4 Mac Mini, perhaps with some extra usb storage. It's possibly the only non-workstation computer that is worth buying in the not-inexpensive category (in the base version, obviously).
> it could be faster (always true for any computer)
The question isn't whether it could be faster, but whether it's slow enough to be annoying for the tasks you use it for.
I bet most people would find the N100 annoyingly slow when opening documents or browsing the web, or doing crazy things like opening a few programs at the same time.
> I bet most people would find the N100 annoyingly slow when opening documents or browsing the web, or doing crazy things like opening a few programs at the same time.
I'm actually not convinced. If you're used to a fast box, yes; I'd argue most people actually aren't.
I was a bit bummed since I wanted to use it as a kind of streaming box, and while it can do it, it is definitely slow.