How best can you display the advances in technology over the years? Let’s take a PC like the landmark original 1984 Apple Macintosh—later rebranded the Macintosh 128K—and shrink it by more than half. Then, boost its processing capability and memory by a factor of thousands or even tens of thousands—AKA modern mobile gaming standards. That’s what Ayaneo is doing with its upcoming Mini PC AM01, a pint-sized homage to the all-in-one computing system that weighs a little more than a pound.
Ayaneo first shared images and a few scant details of its Mini PC earlier this month, but the company launched its funding campaign Retro Mini PC Tuesday and shared full PC specs on its Indiegogo page.
It seems the “Little Mac,” as we at Gizmodo have taken to calling it, is pretty powerful for its size. The Mini PC will come with either an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U at 3.5 GHz or a Ryzen 7 5700U at 4.3 GHz. The “U” signifies they’re the low-power versions of the CPU, but it is plenty powerful to run most web-based applications. It will also sport up to 64GB of DDR4 memory, plus an integrated Vega or RDNA2 video card. It means the Mini PC might have a good deal of function for its petite size. The 3200U version will start at a $149 baseline for those going in early on the crowdfunding campaign, while the 5700U will shoot upwards of $219. The retail price will be $199 and $259 for the less and more powerful CPUs at base.
Novelty is surely a factor, but it only weighs less than 466 grams, or a little more than 1 pound. The box itself measures 5.2 by 5.2 inches and is a little more than 2 inches deep, meaning it is plenty portable even though you’re going to be missing out on any sort of display. The Mini PC supports Wi-Fi 6 or 5, and it contains three USB 3.2 ports, a USB-C (only for data transfer), and an HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 to connect to other displays.
The big sticking point may be memory or, more, the lack of it. The bare system does not contain HDD or SSD, so you’ll have to pay more for 256 GB, 512 GB, or 2 TB of internal storage. It has a PCIe 3.0 slot to support a VMe or SATA SSD, plus a SATA 3.0 interface without the bracket.
The system comes pre-installed with Windows 11, and as a handheld console maker, Ayaneo is trying to share how it could be used for gaming. However, you can also install Linux, Ubuntu, and Debian and gaming-based operating systems like Steam OS. Videocardz also offered a nice rundown of the specs and compared them to the original $2,495 Macintosh released back in ‘84.
When the company first revealed the Mini PC, it displayed it next to a few small, extremely cute game cartridges, but the company confirmed with Gizmodo all that was just set dressing. In effect, the PC is much akin to the new wave of portable gaming consoles, though the starting price on a Mini PC is far, far lower than even the $399 LCD Steam Deck with 256 GB of storage, let alone the newer OLED Steam Decks. Without a screen, the Mini PC offers a different kind of portability, so long as you have controls and a monitor to hook it up to.
So no, it’s not a device meant to play physical media, and the slot on the original Macintosh is instead just a bar to house the power button. There’s also no in-built monochrome screen like the Macintosh 128K, but there is a cheeky nod on the black bar to Apple’s original Finder logo.
It’s a shame nobody outside Ayaneo has had the chance to test out the Mini PC, and we can’t advise anybody to drop money on a crowdfunding campaign when nobody has had the chance to put it through its paces. That doesn’t stop the retro throwback from looking absolutely adorable.
Ayaneo, the China-based handheld PC brand that’s been making waves since 2020, has a penchant for crafting devices that not-so-gently scratch at tech nostalgia. The company is also gearing up to release the Ayaneo Slide, a portable PC that resembles the Nokia Sidekick thanks to the slideout screen hiding a keyboard underneath.