With the rise of powerful APUs, mini PCs have become an extremely viable option for many folks looking for a small form factor computer with decent performance. Sure, you’re not running Monster Hunter Wilds at 4K on these tiny machines, but they can run a whole lot of modern games in 1080p at pretty reasonable framerates. Such is definitely the case with the Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 5825U, which combines mini PC specs with a downright eye-catching retro PC case.
If you’ve heard of Ayaneo before, it’s probably from one of their gaming handhelds. They’re one of the more popular outfits putting out new designs pretty regularly, after all. This mini PC, basically, takes the hardware from those handhelds and puts it in a tiny desktop case that you can hook up to a monitor, keyboard, and other PC peripherals.
The Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 5825U’s main appeal is the case that houses the whole thing, which takes on the likeness of the classic Apple Macintosh from back in the day, albeit in a much smaller size. It measures a compact 5.2 x 5.2 x 2.4 inches (width x depth x height), with a design that’s meant to sit on its back with the non-functional screen facing upwards, almost like someone tipped your Mac PC over. This makes it small enough to slide under monitors and hide behind other stuff on the desk, ensuring you can easily find space for it in any desk setup.
They offer four APU options, namely AMD Ryzen 3 3200U, AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, AMD Ryzen 7 5800U, and AMD Ryzen 7 582SU. If you want to do some decent gaming on this, you’ll definitely want to go with the latter, which gives you a 4.5GHz CPU clock speed, AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics with a graphics frequency of 2000MHz. We know… that doesn’t exactly make for a gaming powerhouse, but it should run plenty of games in a decent manner, especially when paired with up to 64GB of RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage.
The Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 5825U comes with two display ports, HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.4, with support for dual-monitor setups, as well as 4K 60Hz outputs, making this highly-viable as a productivity computer. It also gets one USB-C port, one USB 3.2 slot, and one USB 2.0 port, along with an Ethernet slot and a 3.5mm audio port. For wireless connectivity, it comes with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. It comes preloaded with Windows 11 64-bit Home Edition. For cooling, it’s fitted with four copper tubes for dissipating heat and a 35W high-pressure turbo fan.
Want a barebones version? They offer that, too, with no memory,. storage, or OS, allowing you to customize it based on your intended use. And yes, the outfit claims it can be used to run a custom gaming system running either Steam OS, Batocera, or Chimera OS. We do wish they gave it a functional screen that showed PC performance stats or, better yet, one that you can program to your liking.
The Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01 5825U is available now, priced at $359.
