Seems too good to be true. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing (or AliExpress)? $61 or $77 depending on resources (RAM, Storage)



https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808260118280.html

I have a version of this and a minisforum. I wiped both and put proxmox on them for VM applications. Agree with above to wipe the drive and start with a fresh windows install. But they're great computers for non-graphic intensive workloads.

I ordered 2 at that price. Supposedly already shipped.

Interesting that that page is now gone, I guess because the price is now raised, $120/$150 depending on resources. Here's the new page/offer: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807290140241.html

Comes with "EU" power supply though (240V?). So, I'll need to get a couple of US/110V power supplies to convert to 20V/3A.

BTW, here's what appears to be the same product from Amazon with corresponding prices of $160/$180.
https://www.amazon.com/GMKtec-Windows-Computer-Business-G3/dp/B0CQ4XQ2WG?th=1

Hopefully what I ordered (the 16G ram, 512G storage) at $77 each will work. I guess after I buy a couple of power supplies (if they work) for ~15, I still come out ahead, a little (assuming no spyware, etc.).

Next will come my wife's questions of...what did you need that for? Easy answer: I'm setting up a demo for career day at local schools. Everybody wins.

I never got to see where your original post's link took you, but I have a lot of experience with AliExpress. If you're careful and don't mind waiting a couple of weeks for products, it can be great.

You need to pay extra close attention to the actual seller and user reviews. AliExpress doesn't sell anything, it's a marketplace for 3rd party sellers and there are a bunch of scam stores. If you see sellers like "Shop73649634654" just run from my experience. If I see less than 50 reviews and no user pictures, I run too.

I'm curious to see what shows up for you and hoping for the best. But it sounds like it was quite a bit lower priced than what it would normally be and there were zero reviews - a couple of major red flags. One of my little hobbies that keeps me heavily involved on AliExpress is Chinese retro handhelds. I can't tell you how many reddit posts I've seen where people bought a handheld that typically sells for $150 at for "a complete steal of $90" and they received a light bulb. Literally a light bulb haha. Keep us posted!

Curious what payment type you use and what may be recommended. I used PayPal for this purchase.

GMKtec makes mini computers, and they're a legitimate company. That looks like an older model they're trying to clear out of stock. The N100 is pretty old at this point, though still capable for light purposes.

This could be legit for an unused one of these, thought I would expect the price to be closer to $90-110. Personally I would up the price to $130 and get one with an N150

There's a trend happening now to build out 10 inch mini-racks, and these mini-PCs are good candidates for them. one of these running KVM, a small 4 port switch, a UPS/PDU, coupled with twingate in a container and you have a little workhorse you can deposit on your site to act as a zero-trust relay and/or bastion server.

In this instance, and for things like Temu, I want to get a CC just for those purchases. Preferably not even directed to my home address.

Same. Also, I feel the need to have multiple email addresses for:
* personal/family
* personal/financial
* personal/other (for accounts with sites that I have some doubts about)

For years, I've been thinking about hosting my own server so that I could have my own/better choices of email addresses and cycle them more easily. Need to look into that again.

BTW, supposedly, the miniPCs are going to be delivered today. I need to ensure my wife doesn't think it's a valentines day pkg, because obviously it's not.

I have a few gmail accounts, and through chrome they are "separate" accounts. And can have all the inboxes open at the same time if I want.

Caesar4 said:

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Same. Also, I feel the need to have multiple email addresses for:
* personal/family
* personal/financial
* personal/other (for accounts with sites that I have some doubts about)

For years, I've been thinking about hosting my own server so that I could have my own/better choices of email addresses and cycle them more easily. Need to look into that again.

BTW, supposedly, the miniPCs are going to be delivered today. I need to ensure my wife doesn't think it's a valentines day pkg, because obviously it's not.

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What do you need your own mail server for? Just get your own domain so you can assure you have them for life... and then get hosted for $100/year and have all the mail control on your domain you want to make whatever accounts/aliases you want.

You can't host your own server on a dedicated home network to run email, won't work without being an IT guru and even then, not worth all the hassle. You can't control Reverse DNS, port blocking at isp level is a thing for home networks, and rotating a DHCP IP and keeping up dns records...just no.

Not to derail too much, but since I started the thread, I guess it's allowed, lol.

Do you recommend a site to get a domain from? Last time I looked, I was looking at GoDaddy. Not sure if there are more preferred options.

satexas said:

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For those of you that worry about spyware but also use @gmail free mail (and it's free for a reason), I shake my head at.

They read/analyze your mail. They as much tell you so. Nothing in life is free.

Get your own domain and hosted mail, and respect your own privacy. Just sayin'.

/preach mode off.

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Proton has a free e-mail account with limited amounts of e-mail.

One that isn't bad at all is Vivaldi. I don't know how much they read of it.

OnlyForNow said:

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In this instance, and for things like Temu, I want to get a CC just for those purchases. Preferably not even directed to my home address.

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I am not tempted to buy anything from Temu, but I have been tempted to get a credit card account that does one time numbers.

So I looked at privacy.com, but there terms are completely unacceptable. There is no way that I'm going to give them my username and password for them to log into my bank account.

That said, if you want to get a card to use with flaky people without exposing yourself so much, get another bank account and keep the balance in it just high enough to pay what you expect to charge on its associated credit/debit card.

I've talked to a local banker about doing this before and he said they had no issue with it.

Welp, the package was ostensibly delivered by FedEx (with pic attached) to some address in another city/state.

No idea if my package is still in-transit and they simply pasted in the wrong tracking number or if my package was indeed delivered elsewhere. And, I have no idea if what's in the box that was delivered is actually what I ordered.

So, I started a dispute with AliExpress.

Not that it's really important now, but I have that exact PC running a Plex Media Server. It works for that purpose, but I swapped a Linux install onto it. Purchased on Amazon though.

Probably the smart thing to do. My guess would be that's something completely cheap and random sent to someone else and you won't ever get what you thought you ordered. Hopefully that dispute works out.

Refund received. Have to say that I was pretty pleased with AliExpress's handling of the situation.

I initiated a chat session last night and was immediately connected and the person messaged in perfectly fine English, which was a surprise. I explained the situation and they encouraged me to file a dispute, just to ensure that funds were not released to the seller until the case was concluded.

I did initiate the dispute, and I did receive the refund. But, I'm still kind of hoping that I'll still get those 2 miniPCs, because the price was good. If I do receive them, then I'll have to find a way to get them what I owe.

But, I sort of suspect that they were unintentionally priced too low. Upon my (and/or others), the low price was discovered (would explain why that offer was gone the next day and replaced with one about $30 higher.

Then, to satisfy the order, the seller chose to send "something" to "somewhere" and call it good from their end. Maybe? Otherwise, I can't really explain the foul-up.

I may just pay more and order from Amazon to not have extra crud to deal with.

Good to hear they resolved that so fast, I'd always heard they were shockingly solid in that department. What's the name of the shop you bought these through? You should be able to see if they have any good/bad/non-existent history.

The seller was Venus Direct Trading Store. But the store has been deleted (just checked).

Also found similar experience with that store by someone who posted on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1ipnm2d/comment/mctgz7j/

ETA: that scam is #005 from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/hlk157/common_scams_on_aliexpress_and_how_to_avoid_them/

Damn. Well I hope you luck out and wind up with the product! If not, I wouldn't sweat it too much. AliExpress takes a little experience and then it can be a great cheap marketplace. A ton of stuff you'll see on Amazon is AE stuff marked up like 20-30%, sometimes more. I get a ton of plushies and stuff for my kiddos off there, really solid quality.

Check out Privacy.com.

They allow you to create an account that you "fund" with a bank account or debit card. From there, you can create single-use or "merchant locked" virtual credit cards that, once tied to a vendor, can't be used anywhere else. You have complete control on what you create, what spending limits you want to put in place (single-use, daily, monthly, or yearly, IIRC), and when to close them.

A basic account is totally free and comes with some limitations (spending limit, how many cards you can create each month). Paid-accounts fund the "free" tier. Both tiers are totally reasonable. Been using this for over a decade and it's saved my butt a few times (like when CoCS payment info made its way onto the web -- my "Privacy Card" was in that batch but the spending limit auto-declined the charge).

Piggybacking off this thread, does anyone have a good recommendation for a decent N100 or similar mini-pc.

Will be using it to run a unifi server along with a Roon server.

AgDev01 said:

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Piggybacking off this thread, does anyone have a good recommendation for a decent N100 or similar mini-pc.

Will be using it to run a unifi server along with a Roon server.

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https://texags.com/forums/30/topics/3526400

I have an MSI cubi that I upgraded the ram on and have been pleased. Many different models based on your needs. https://us-store.msi.com/Desktops/business-and-productivity/cubi-series

AgDev01 said:

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Piggybacking off this thread, does anyone have a good recommendation for a decent N100 or similar mini-pc.

Will be using it to run a unifi server along with a Roon server.

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https://slickdeals.net/f/18127930-gmktec-nucbox-g3-plus-mini-pc-intel-n150-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-11-129-99-free-shipping

AgDev01 said:

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Piggybacking off this thread, does anyone have a good recommendation for a decent N100 or similar mini-pc.

Will be using it to run a unifi server along with a Roon server.

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I have Beelink s12 minis all over my office. No issues.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Does anyone know the power consumption of these compared to regular desktop computers?