What is the smartest hardware buy you made recently?

[Tia88]

The power consumption difference over a year matters more than people think at current UK electricity prices. 5 to 8 watts versus 10 to 15 watts sounds small but at 25p per kilowatt hour the Pi 5 is meaningfully cheaper to run continuously

[CollapseState87]

The home server and mini PC market has bifurcated in interesting ways in 2026. At the sub-£200 end you have two genuinely compelling options that serve different use cases: the Raspberry Pi 5 8GB at around £75 with appropriate accessories, and the Intel N100-based mini PCs from manufacturers including Beelink, Minisforum and Trigkey that start at around £130 to £150 for the base models. Both are capable, both are efficient, and the right choice depends entirely on what you want to do with the device.

The Pi 5 wins on power consumption, community support and software ecosystem maturity for its specific use cases. A Pi 5 running as a 24/7 home server draws around 5 to 8 watts under typical load, compared to 10 to 15 watts for an N100 mini PC. Over a year at UK electricity prices that difference represents meaningful savings and the Pi 5 does not need active cooling for most server workloads. The Raspberry Pi OS and the vast library of community documentation make setting up services like Home Assistant, Pi-hole, Jellyfin and Nextcloud extremely straightforward.

The N100 mini PC wins on raw performance, compatibility and flexibility. It runs full x86 Windows or Linux without any architectural compatibility concerns, handles light gaming and video transcoding significantly better than a Pi 5, and typically includes 8GB or 16GB of RAM plus internal NVMe storage in the base price. The Beelink EQ12 and Minisforum UM350 are the most recommended in 2026 for general-purpose home server use. If you need to run Docker containers at scale, transcode 4K video locally in Jellyfin, or run Windows for specific compatibility, the N100 is the better choice.

Best Mini Pcwww.techradar.com

[Amber90]

The N100 being x86 and running full Linux is the compatibility argument that is hard to dismiss. Everything that runs on x86 Linux just works without checking for ARM builds. For some workflows that architectural decision is made for you before you even start

[Cass93]

Home Assistant on a Pi 5 is the single best home automation setup available at any price. The hardware matches the software perfectly and the community documentation is extraordinary. If that is your primary use case the Pi 5 wins easily