PELADN HO4 Mini PC Intel® Core™ i5-12450H

Made this into a camera security server using blue iris and windows server 2019. Handles a variety of cameras (about 15) in various resolutions (4k, 1440, 1080 and 720) with no issues. Thanks to Intel Quiksync for video encoding the CPU sits around 35% utilization at peak. Only uses 20W at peak! It replaced my old server that would hang around 165w doing the same thing.

It’s been running rock solid for a couple of months now. Stock other than a bigger NVME meant for this kind of use.

I’m quite happy!

I continue to be amazed at how small these devices are getting yet how much power is crammed into the small footprint. I needed a replacement for my venerable Dell desktop, so after shopping around I decided on the Peladn. Not the fastest processor available, but the 12th generation i5 does everything I need it to do and is a big step up from the Dell. Used Laplink software to transfer the software--a couple of glitches, but nothing that couldn't be resolved easily and quickly. So now my Peladn is attached to the back of my monitor where I don't even notice it, and it is doing a superlative job. I did purchase a 6-port USB hub which plugs into the USB-C port on the computer cause I have several external drives and quickly used up all the ports. But that only cost me about $17, and now I have more than enough USB ports to do anything I need.

When I opened the computer to upgrade the RAM, I was particularly impressed by the build quality. Got it on sale, but even at the current price of $275, this mini is a bargain.

I purchased this mini computer to replace a big desktop. I mostly use my computer for home office and video streaming services (I haven't had cable TV for years). The computer runs quietly and is usually in use 12 to 16 hours a day. I love the speed of the SSD drive for the operating system and the dual HDMI outputs allow me to use two monitors. I'm not a big gamer so I didn't rate the computer for gaming but I've already recommended this system to some of my crew.

Things I Love: This thing is FAST. I am using it to run TrueNAS Scale mini-home lab. The two 2.5G/b ports make it great to connect to my 2.5G/b switch, then I have my plex server replicating to the storage pool I built for the thing. The other thing though is that this thing has enough cores to not only run my Truenas Scale instance, but Nextcloud and a bunch of other docker containers. You can even adjust the power & fan speed settings in BIOS. It's a neat conversation starter with the little RGB ring around the top too. I think I might put some more ram in, but for now it's working great!
Things I wish it had: I wish the ports on the back were 3.1 (they are 2.0) and I wish there were two USB4 ports on the device. In all, you only get 1 USB-C 4.0 port and two 3.1 ports, which is fine with my little USB 3.1 J-Bod for the storage.

I replaced a docked surface pro 4 with this and I've been very pleased. It's powerful enough that I have been playing Baldur's Gate 3 on it with only the occasional lag which for a turn-based game, does not affect gameplay.