MOREFINE M9 Mini PC 12th Alder Lake- N100(Up to 3.4GHz), 8GB DDR4 RAM 256GB PCIe SSD Mini PC Windows 11 Pro, Mini Computers Support Dual HDMI 4K UHD Output/WiFi6/BT5.2/USB 3.2

I ordered 4 minicomputers (all N100) and returned 1. Only this one ran Linux Mint out of the box. I am done with Windows (almost). The first a GMKTek G2 needed a modem swap to an intel unit before I could get it online. I ended up using it as a file server using Ubuntu Server 22.04. It's running great. The 2nd was a MomentPlus unit that ran Win11 just fine but would only run Linux in software acceleration video mode so it ran hot (75+ ° C.} all the time. Again, not acceptable, but for $100, I reloaded Windows 11 Pro and now it sits ready for whatever. Then I tried a BeeLink S12 that would not connect to my wireless. It got returned. Finally, the Morefine M9 arrived and ran beautifully from the Live Linux Mint Edge flash drive that I later installed. I have upgraded it to 16GB RAM and a 4TB SSD. I feel like it runs faster than the circa 2015 Core i5-6400 unit I left behind when I moved. Not bad for the money. Silly thing, but I love that the audio connector is on the back.

I'm actually surprised this handles quite a bit for the price and size. Good little on the go pc for everyday use (nothing intensive). I have run some simulators on here for my classes with no problem. Very Easy to set up

Out of box, worked as expected. One difficulty is rear USB ports act differently from front USB ports. Still in learning phase about unit.

I didn't have to do any of the usual fuss of formatting, re-imaging, licensing etc... I just used it out of the box. Added some accounts and security, ran a few rootkits detectors and started using it.I'm only using for latenight video streaming. No personal info on the device whatsoever. Video output to bedroom home theater screen and 5.1 audio. Now, this is living!

My husband and I were shopping for a new computer for his mom, and this is perfect for her needs. We decided to replace her very old WP4 laptop so she could finally drop her old ip and use only our ip.Main pros for this comp is that it uses newer wp standards and has 4k playback.

This unit is a huge step up in speed compared to my Gen 6 NUC. Everything worked perfectly out of the box and we were setup and loading apps in a matter of minutes.Coming with Windows 11 Pro is also a nice upgrade (and a fairly expensive one) for a unit of this type.I used both wired and wireless connectivity to set it up and speeds were comparable on both (we have a 1 gig Internet connection) and local Excel processing was multiple times faster than the old Gen 6.Time will tell how well it holds up, but for now, I was thoroughly impressed.

First ThoughtsI have a couple small HP 1L PCs I use to run different things around the house and the newest has a 6th gen 65W i5-6500, so I thought something like this Morefine M9 with its 12th gen 6W E-core based processor would be a very nice replacement! The M9 seemed like it had better build quality than some of the other mini pcs I’ve seen on Amazon and Aliexpress, so I figured I’d give it a shot.ConstructionThe Morefine M9 has a very nice metal chassis with excellent ventilation. The left and right sides have a fairly large mesh area, with the heatsink fan drawing in from both sides and venting out the top rear. The mesh is large enough that the bottom section with the ram and ssd’s is able to have some ventilation, rather than a completely sealed enclosure. The power supply is a nice 12V 3A unit with folding prongs and seems plenty for this PC even with some extra load on the USB ports you might add. I saw the M9 hit a max of 21W at the wall during a benchmark, so that should give about 15W of headroom for accessories. At least the screws to remove the bottom panel are accessible without having to remove adhesive rubber feet! Thank you!!!!!!!ExpansionI was a little disappointed that the Intel N100 is only single channel, so since my unit came with a single 8GB stick, I’ll have to basically just scrap that and buy a completely new stick of ram to upgrade. It did come with a generic 8GB DDR4 3200 at least, so I’m glad they didn’t cheap out and equip it with a lower speed stick than the CPU is made for.The NVMe SSD is also a very generic drive, but it works fine, with one caveat. The M9 only runs the NVMe slot at an x2 interface, so I was only seeing 1465MB/s write and 1650MB/s read speeds. The drive supplied is a PCIe x4 drive, but the M9 is limiting it to only half the bandwidth it’s capable of.There is an open M.2 slot that fits 2242 size drives, but it is keyed for SATA drives only, so NVMe will NOT fit in this slot. I will probably pick up some SATA 2242 drive to use as a boot drive and put a 2TB or 4TB NVMe in the main slot.ConnectivityI was happy to see that the M9 comes with an Intel AX201 wifi card that can be upgraded later down the road if needed, although with it already having a nice card, I don’t think I’ll need to upgrade it for a very long time if ever. The LAN port is an Intel i225-V capable of 2.5gbe, although I will have to upgrade my switch to be able to test that. There are 4x USB 3.0 Type A ports of the 5Gbps variety, so no Type C here, unfortunately.PerformanceI ran Passmark v10.2 after installing all Windows 11 updates to check the performance as shipped. The overall Passmark rating was 1764 with a CPU score of 5991. Considering this is a 6W TDP processor, I felt like this is an excellent result! It even surpasses the 65W i5-6500 in my HP 800 G2 Mini! I think Morefine set the power a little higher than stock, as it showed the PL2 was set to 15W and the PL1 long term was set to 10W, so if you have the Intel N100 in another system, you may not see quite as high performance.As I mentioned earlier, running benchmarks, I saw this unit top out around 21W at the wall. The CPU hit a max package temp of 81C with the individual cores hitting a max of 88C. Idle dropped down to around 8W at the wall with a CPU temp around 42C. I feel like Morefine could have increased the fan speed some or added some extra fins to the heatsink since they are running the N100 at a higher wattage than spec.ConclusionWould I recommend this unit, yes and no? It is very well built, comes with the best networking available, and runs decently cool and quiet, however at just $50 more than the M9, I’ve seen some other mini systems running Ryzen 5000 processors that would absolutely destroy the Morefine M9. Many of those systems also provide one or even two USB Type C ports that would really be nice to see on the M9. For what I’m using this system for, it’s perfect, but there are some improvements that could be made or at least lower the price a little.

This small powerful mini PC can do a lot. But it cannot be used for gaming. I downloaded Diablo 4 on it and it downloaded just fine but once downloaded and went for the install Blizzard warned me that the CPU is not compatible for that game. It may work on not so CPU demanding games like Stardew Valley. But anything else it won’t work on. It is great to use for quick work tasks along with watching YouTube. It definitely is a space saver mini PC. You can mount it to the back of your monitor or place on you desk and know it is not going to take up much space. It can have multiple monitors connected to it at once. Which is nice. This is a great family room PC. I can have multiple tabs open on Chrome and this handles that with ease.