With the Mini Air12, Geekom offers a new, particularly affordable and energy-efficient PC.
This relies on the Intel N100. Certainly not the most powerful CPU, but modern and economical! Ideal for a secondary PC, media PC or small mini home server.
Let’s take a look at the new Geekom Mini Air12 in the test!
At this point, many thanks to Geekom for providing the Mini Air12 for this test!
Mini Air12 from Geekom in the test
The Mini Air12 relies on the typical Geekom design. The mini PC has a very compact design and is made of black/silver plastic.
I would describe the design as “office-friendly”. The PC doesn’t stand out in any way.
What is extremely strong, as with most mini PCs, is the IO. So on the front we have:
1x USB C 3.2 10 Gbit
1x USB A 3.2 10 Gbit
1x 3,5 mm Kopfhöreranschluss
Of course we also have the power switch with status LED on the front.
On the left we have the following:
And last but not least on the back:
1x HDMI 2.0
1x Mini-DisplayPort
1x Gbit LAN
2x USB A 3.2 10 Gbit
1x USB C 3.2 10 Gbit
1x DC 19V Eingang
This is great connection equipment! There is nothing to criticize here for a PC of this class.
Inside the Mini Air12
If you remove the four screws on the bottom of the Mini Air12 you can open it.
Inside you will find the following:
1x M.2 NVME SSD Slot
1x SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM Slot
We only have one RAM slot. This is due to the Intel N100, which supports a maximum of one memory channel.
This memory channel can be DDR4 or DDR5. Fortunately, in contrast to most mini PC manufacturers, Geekom uses the faster DDR5 memory, which somewhat compensates for the speed disadvantages caused by only one memory channel.
The card reader
There is an SD card reader on the side of the mini PC, nice!
However, it only seems to be connected internally via USB 2.0. Accordingly, the data rates are limited to a manageable 27-30 MB/s.
network
Excitingly, the Geekom Mini Air12 uses Realtek network controllers. On the LAN port side we have a simple Realtek PCIe network controller.
On the WLAN side we have the Realtek 8852BE. This is a simple WLAN controller with Bluetooth and up to 1201 Mbit.
Good, but nothing extraordinary either.
Performance of the Geekom Mini Air12
The heart of the Geekom Mini Air12 is the Intel N100.
Intel N100 4 cores 4 threads up to 3.4 GHz will release E-Cores from the Intel Alder Lake architecture in early 2023
The Intel N100 is an entry-level processor! It has 4 cores that are based on Intel’s current Alder Lake architecture, but these are exclusively the so-called “efficiency” cores. Intel 12th and 13th generation processors have two types of CPU cores: performance cores and efficiency cores. Depending on which processor you have, the number of these cores varies.
With the N100 you only have 4 of the slower CPU cores designed for efficiency. They are also slowed down by a very strict performance limit.
Intel says the N100 has a TDP of just 6W.
To put it bluntly, the Intel N100 is a chip that is not suitable, or only suitable to a very limited extent, for advanced applications.
Web browsing, Office, etc. is OK with an Intel N100, but extreme multitasking or extensive photo/video editing quickly reaches its limits.
The benchmarks are mixed. If we compare the Mini Air12 with “large” mini PCs or modern notebooks, things look very bleak.
However, compared to other models with Intel N100 or the older “Celeron” models, the performance is not bad at all!
For an absolute entry-level PC, the Mini Air12 delivers quite well.
In practice
The Geekom Mini Air12 is certainly not a racing machine, but it clearly runs the best of all the Mini PCs with Intel N100 that I have had in my hands so far!
Normal office work, web browsing, watching videos, etc. runs smoothly on the PC.
However, when it comes to multitasking, things get a little thinner. For example, if Windows installs a major update in the background, you will notice it!
If you have several demanding programs open, the PC becomes sluggish. Office + web browser is OK, but with more than that it becomes difficult.
Programs for photo and video editing generally run, but depending on the scope they run rather sluggishly.
Gaming or something like that is effectively not possible on the Geekom Mini Air12, apart from browser games and the like.
The SSD
On the SSD side, Geekom uses a Lexar NM620 for me. The NM620 is certainly not an “extreme” SSD, but I think Geekom could have made a much worse choice in a PC of this class.
Stupidly speaking, the SSD is good and Lexar is a trustworthy manufacturer.
In the test, the SSD achieved a solid 3332 MB/s reading and 3030 MB/s writing. The SSD will not slow down this system.
Very quiet!
A plus point, the Geekom Mini Air12 is very quiet! The PC is barely audible even under load.
Power consumption of the Geekom Mini Air12
Power consumption is an important point for mini PCs! What does the Geekom Mini Air12 need?
Windows desktop – approx. 5.8 W Web browsing – approx. 8.5-14 W full load – approx. 26 W
These are very low consumption values even for a mini PC!
Conclusion
Whether I can recommend the Geekom Mini Air12 depends somewhat on the intended use.
The Intel N100 processor is “OK” for simple tasks. Web browsers, a little Office, media applications, watching films, etc. are easily possible with the Geekom Mini Air12.
The Intel N100 is only partially suitable for advanced applications, as well as for extreme multitasking. Here the CPU quickly reaches its limit.
I would therefore recommend the Geekom Mini Air12 primarily as a 2nd PC or media PC or perhaps as a mini home server. For the latter, this would also be interesting thanks to the extremely low power consumption! This is under 6W when idle!
Other plus points are the really good IO, the quiet fan and the generally good features and solid SSD.
This is also generally the fastest Mini PC with Intel N100 that I have had my hands on so far, probably thanks to the DDR5 memory.