Minisforum releases Venus mini PCs with Intel Alder Lake N processors

Minisforum has announced two new mini PCs in the Venus series. The UN100 and UN305 both use an Alder Lake-N chip. The more expensive variant has an Intel Core i3-N305.

The Venus UN100 and UN305 are from Friday on sale at Minisforum. Both models are available in two versions: one with 8GB memory and 256GB storage, and one with 16GB memory and 512GB storage. The memory cannot be expanded or replaced because it is soldered on, but the upgrade to the faster model is not expensive at 30 euros.

The mini PCs are the first Minisforum devices to have an Alder Lake N chip from Intel on board. For the UN100 that is the N100. Not surprisingly, the UN305 uses the N305 processor. The N100 is a quad-core soc with a maximum speed of 3.4GHz and an integrated Intel UHD GPU of 750MHz. The N305 is faster; that is a Core i3 processor with an octacore chip that reaches a maximum of 3.8 GHz and has a GPU of 1.25 GHz.

Except for the processor, both devices are the same. The Mini PCs have two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two HDMI ports and a USB-C port with DisplayPort option. This allows up to three screens to be connected at the same time. There are also four USB-A 3.2 ports on the device, two of which are Gen 1s and two Gen 2s.

The metal housing is also the same for both devices. They can be opened up to add an M.2 2280 SSD, or a 2.5″ hard drive or SSD. The low-cost N100 model costs $249; the more expensive N305 model costs $359.