Have you noticed that the mini PC market has become increasingly popular since last year? The leading domestic brand, Zero刻, has also been releasing new products one after another, and during the 618 shopping festival, many products saw their prices drop to rock bottom. For instance, the new Zero刻 SER5 mini PC, equipped with an R5-5500U processor, is priced just over a thousand yuan. We say: with this brand and this price, there’s no reason not to choose it, especially when it can run macOS.
Let’s clarify something: many friends have been asking how to choose a mini PC from Zero刻. Here’s a unified explanation of the product line. The positioning of each product from this brand is very clear: the GTR series is aimed at users who have high requirements for fingerprint recognition and performance, suitable for business scenarios like stock trading, meetings, and running large applications, focusing on performance release; the SER and SEi series are targeted at users for gaming entertainment and video processing, with low-load fan noise being very quiet, and high-load cooling specially tuned to maintain burst performance for extended periods; the EQ series focuses on low power consumption and light office use, and products with dual 2.5G network ports are also very suitable for soft routing, virtual machines, and lightweight NAS. How to choose depends on your needs, and there’s no need to waste money on excess performance.
Additionally, don’t complain about the R5-5500U not being as good as the 7735, 6800, or 5800. Price determines everything! The other models are priced at over two thousand or three thousand, and even the slightly better 5600H costs over two thousand, making them incomparable. As mentioned above, users who buy the R5-5500U focus on the balance between performance and price. For instance, I often use PS, PR, and Blender, and occasionally play League of Legends and CSGO. This SER5 is sufficient, and for just over a thousand, you can’t expect it to be a “superbike”!
Moreover, some people say it’s better to buy a laptop. I want to ask everyone, for a laptop with the same configuration, you’d need at least three thousand, which is nearly double the price, just for an extra screen. Do you think it’s worth it? I choose a mini PC for its compactness. Although I don’t carry it out often, it’s definitely more convenient to carry than a laptop, and it can be paired with any monitor, TV, or projector, directly replacing most usage scenarios of traditional desktops and laptops. I actually find mini PCs more suitable for me.
The dimensions of 12.6cm x 11.3cm x 4cm make the body extremely mini, only 1/30 the volume of a traditional desktop, which is also the biggest advantage of mini PCs. You can place it anywhere on your desk, and with a mounting bracket, it can even be hung on the back of the monitor. If something comes up, you can easily take it off and put it in your bag to carry out. It’s incredibly convenient.
The top and sides of the host use a large area of metal mesh cover, providing some dust resistance while allowing internal heat to dissipate in a timely manner. Coupled with a large area of heat sinks and powerful fans inside, it ensures stable operation of the machine for a long time.
On the front interface, you can see that the host is designed with two USB 3.2 ports and one fully functional Type-C port, in addition to a 3.5mm headphone jack (which is compatible with microphones), and the classic red power button. It’s worth mentioning that the Type-C not only supports 4K@60Hz video transmission but also allows for a single cable connection to portable displays, powering and transmitting signals directly to the display device, resulting in fewer cables and a cleaner desktop.
Now looking at the back of the machine, it features an RJ45 Gigabit LAN port, a USB 3.2 port, a USB 2.0 port, an HDMI 2.0, and a DP interface, meeting the connection needs of 99% of display devices on the market. Coupled with the front Type-C port, it can also achieve three-screen display, which is good news for users with multi-screen needs.
If you choose the barebones version without memory and hard drive, assembling it yourself is also very simple. Just remove the back cover with four screws, install your own hard drive and memory, and then install a system. However, be careful with the cable when opening, as Zero刻’s mini PCs generally support 2.5-inch hard drive expansion, and the back cover is designed with a hard drive compartment.
If you’re not very handy or are concerned about the genuine system issue, then just choose a finished machine like I did, with 16G/500G or 16G/1TB configurations, which is worry-free and convenient, plus you get a genuine Windows 11, which is only a few hundred yuan more.
This machine uses dual 8G Crucial DDR4 memory with a frequency of 3200MHz, which significantly improves the integrated graphics performance. 16GB of memory is sufficient for most scenarios, and if there are special needs, you can choose to upgrade, with a maximum support of 64G memory, which means dual-channel 32G.
The hard drive uses Crucial NVMe protocol M.2 SSD, and it also supports expansion with a 2.5-inch hard drive. Generally speaking, 500GB is still a bit small, but fortunately, hard drives are very cheap now, and I plan to add a 1TB one later. Also, the Zero刻 SER5 supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, which are very stable for transmission.
Many people may be concerned about the R5-5500U processor and what level it is at. It features a Zen2 architecture, 7nm process, 6 cores, and 12 threads, with a base frequency of 2.1GHz and a maximum frequency of 4.0GHz, equipped with a Vega7 integrated graphics with a frequency of 1800MHz. Strictly speaking, it is considered mid-range among current mobile platforms. The advantage of the low-power U is its power consumption and heat dissipation, with a TDP of 15W. Given that it is positioned in a mini PC priced at a thousand yuan, its advantages become clear, supporting daily office work and light gaming entertainment with ease.
With a score of 720,000 on Lu Master, it surpasses 53% of users nationwide, making daily web browsing, office work, high-definition videos, and occasional light 3D gaming all very feasible.
In the CrystalDisk hard drive benchmark test, the sequential read and write speeds were 3401MB/s and 1890MB/s respectively, with random 4K read speeds of 48MB/s and write speeds of 161MB/s. The performance of this PCIe3.0 SSD from Micron is quite good.
PCMARK10 scored 4280 points, which is a decent score, and as a productivity tool, it poses no issues.
It also passed the stress tests in 3DMARK with high scores.
In the Time Spy test, the score was 1133, with a graphics score of 1009 and a CPU score of 4428.
In the Cinebench R23 test, the multi-core score was 6481 and the single-core score was 1172.
League of Legends is ranked among the top five competitive games, and I also enjoy inviting a few friends for a few rounds. The Zero刻 SER5 handles this game effortlessly, maintaining a steady 70 frames per second at 1080P high quality, and the fan noise is barely noticeable, making for a very satisfying experience.
World of Warcraft may no longer be available in the domestic server, but I believe many loyal fans are still exploring the land of Azeroth. This game has an epic background and a complex battle system, with a very large map. Raids test the performance of the machine significantly. The Zero刻 SER5 maintains an average FPS of 80+ at 1080P medium quality during the entire test process, although there are noticeable frame drops in some long battle scenes, but overall it is smooth.
CS:GO is a game that it handles easily. I estimate that the frame rate is above 100, with no stuttering at all.
Next, let’s test the currently popular Genshin Impact. At 1080P medium settings, the average frame rate is 38, and there are noticeable frame drops in battle scenes. Playing this game on this machine is indeed a bit challenging, unless you can accept low graphics.
Regarding heat dissipation, friends who have used Zero刻 mini PCs know that this brand has excellent heat dissipation tuning. Although the SER5 does not have dual fans, the cooling effect is still very good. At a room temperature of 27℃, normal graphic processing maintains an exhaust temperature of 45℃, and the fan is very quiet.
For those interested in running macOS, you can follow @李佑辰大佬 on 二次元站, who has tutorials available. You can follow the step-by-step guide as well, or check out my channel, where I will release a pictorial tutorial in the next issue.
After using the Zero刻 SER5 for a few days, I’ve summarized three points:
1. If you pursue the ultimate graphics for AAA games, then you should honestly stick to a large desktop for now.
2. When choosing a mini PC, in addition to focusing on configuration and price, it is essential to choose a reputable brand for reliable quality and after-sales service.
3. Discussing configuration without considering price is meaningless; isn’t a mini PC with R5-5500U for just over a thousand yuan attractive?
Finally, the Zero刻 SER5, positioned at a thousand yuan, is very appealing for users on a budget who have certain performance requirements. In this price range, the advantages of the R5-5500U become apparent. If you have good DIY skills, you can get a barebones system and keep the total cost under 1500 yuan with the current prices of hard drives and memory. If you want to buy a laptop with the same configuration, it would cost twice as much, and in terms of space usage, expansion, upgradeability, and heat dissipation, it can’t compare to a mini PC. I believe the Zero刻 SER5 is truly worth considering.
If you want convenience, you can directly buy the finished machine; the 16+500GB version is only 1635 yuan and also comes with a genuine Windows 11, which is quite reasonable. Additionally, the whole machine enjoys a 30-day free trial, 180 days of replacement service, one-year warranty for the whole machine, and three years of warranty for major hardware, along with lifetime online technical support. Such service and price are truly worth recommending.