This Tiny Acer Pc Made Me Reconsider Why I Still Use A Full-size Tower In 2025

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• The Acer Veriton NUC AI PC is presently connected waste for $829.
• This mini PC has a very mini footprint, while offering multi-monitor support, robust cooling, and soft performance.
• Its champion purchased connected sale, arsenic location are galore competitory options astatine nan regular value point.

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My world mostly revolves astir laptops; I've spent astir of my individual and master life utilizing them. As a result, mini PCs person mostly been an afterthought, though I've ever been funny astir their capabilities. Could a mini desktop connection nan aforesaid level of restitution to propulsion maine distant from nan notebook shape factor? 

I confronted that mobility caput connected erstwhile I precocious tested nan Acer Veriton NUC AI PC, a mini Copilot PC designed for businesses.

Also: The champion mini PCs you tin buy

I'll beryllium honest: I don't scheme to ditch laptops anytime soon. However, Acer's mini instrumentality made a very compelling case. I tin perfectly spot myself adding 1 of these PCs to my setup successful nan adjacent future. If you're looking for a caller computer, location are surely reasons to see a mini PC. Here's why.

Small but mighty

As you tin see, nan Veriton PC is tiny, measuring conscionable 5.16 x 5.16 x 1.69 inches and weighing astir a pound. It's fundamentally a tenth of nan size of my large PC tower. I've eaten sandwiches bigger than this. 

Even pinch nan included 90W powerfulness adapter, this setup will not request a ton of room, and that's nan constituent here. Acer says nan PC is designed for mini spaces, particularly successful a business mounting wherever there's nary room for a afloat agency setup. It's besides worthy mentioning that nan PC is VESA-compliant, truthful pinch nan correct accessories, you tin connect it to nan backmost of a show for an moreover cleaner setup.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Acer didn't discarded immoderate valuable aboveground space, arsenic nan instrumentality comes pinch a thoughtful action of ports. You get 4 USB-A ports (two USB 3.2 inputs up beforehand and 2 USB 2.0 inputs astir nan back). The Veriton besides provides 3 different show ports: HDMI and DisplayPort connected nan rear, positive DisplayPort complete USB-C astatine nan front, supporting up to 3 outer monitors simultaneously.

What's neat astir nan USB-C is that it supports information transportation and tin besides beryllium utilized for charging outer devices.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

One standout item is nan brace of 2.5Gbps LAN ports connected nan back. Most group won't touch these (especially since nan Veriton supports Wi-Fi 6), but they're useful for professionals moving crossed aggregate networks. Speaking of workplace environments, supra nan powerfulness fastener is simply a fingerprint scholar for added security, which tin beryllium group up via Windows Settings.

The hardware wrong this mini PC is comparable to a midrange laptop, truthful power buildup has nan imaginable to beryllium a problem. Acer accounted for this, providing power vents connected each broadside (except nan apical and front) to cool nan internals.

Putting it to nan test

There are 2 main configurations of nan Veriton NUC AI PC, and I tested nan higher-end model. My reappraisal portion came pinch an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. A configuration for illustration this lands nan PC person to a midrange Windows laptop than a premium machine, arsenic noted successful nan array below. You'll announcement that it aligns much pinch nan Acer Aspire 16 AI than pinch nan much powerful Asus ExpertBook P3.

In mundane use, nan Veriton holds its own. My first accent trial consisted of dozens of Chrome tabs, a mates of 4K livestreams, animated GIFs, and a heap of Black Friday woody pages. Everything ran smoothly until I crossed nan 40-tab mark, astatine which constituent slowdown began to creep in, accompanied by blank pages and longer load times. 

Things worsened further erstwhile I downloaded a crippled done Steam while browsing nan web. The ample record resulted successful throttling and a fewer impermanent freezes.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Being me, I couldn't thief it but effort playing a fewer video games connected nan Veriton. Lightweight indie games for illustration "Hollow Knight: Silksong" ran perfectly, pinch nary stuttering aliases freezes. With much graphically demanding titles, things weren't rather arsenic smooth. "Resident Evil 3" was different trial game, and I had to set a fewer of nan settings -- nan framework complaint was a spot choppy. But successful nan end, it besides ran great, if a small fuzzy-looking. 

While playing some games, nan fans kicked into precocious gear. The Veriton's aboveground somesthesia stayed tame, arsenic nan chassis only became somewhat warm.

Also: How overmuch RAM does your PC really request successful 2025? A Windows and Mac master weighs in

For my last accent test, I drew inspiration from Jack Wallen, a chap ZDNET writer. I attempted to tally a section LLM that I downloaded from Ollama. Unfortunately, owed to nan PC's constricted hardware capabilities, I was incapable to do this. A important information of nan Ollama LLMs require a bully magnitude of representation to run, pinch a fewer demanding arsenic overmuch arsenic 64GB. I couldn't instal them.

If you scheme connected utilizing nan Veriton for AI workloads, you're amended disconnected pinch a cloud-based model. I ran nan gpt-oss:120b-cloud exemplary arsenic a test, and I asked it to create a 20-year profession strategy plan. It delivered a highly elaborate outline, complete pinch tables and cleanable formatting.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Acer Veriton NUC AI PC normally retails for $1,050, but is presently connected waste for $834.97. If you're looking to prevention immoderate money, nan Acer Veriton PC pinch an Intel Core Ultra 5 225V processor is disposable for $800. Both listings travel pinch a free rodent and keyboard.

I would urge this mini PC to master users who request a compact, unafraid desktop pinch modern hardware and takes up nary space. The dual LAN setup, successful particular, emphasizes its domiciled arsenic a business-centric machine. I can't really urge it to nan mean personification since it can't lucifer nan aforesaid level of inferior arsenic a accepted laptop, for illustration nan Aspire 16.