Amazing Technology:NUC

Amazing Future technology:""NUC PC"
NUC:

What is a NUC PC:

A NUC, short for “Next Unit of Computing”, is a small box-shaped computer that often won’t measure more than a few inches across or deep, containing an entire system crammed into its miniscule chassis. A DIYers dream, NUC computers are sold as barebones kits that users need to assemble themselves in order to get it working, sort of like an old-timey airplane model that also happens to be able to play Starcraft at 60fps.

The power you can get out of a NUC will vary greatly depending on the type of unit you opt for, equipped with anything from an Intel G3258 1.5GHz dual-core and 1GB of RAM, up to an i7-5577u quad-core and 8GB of RAM. In general, NUCs are fairly limited on the number of ports they can hold or the extra features they can support, but they aren’t missed nearly as much when you see that NUCs come with a price to match.

Some older generation NUCs can be found for as low as $100 out the door, and will still give you all the umph you’d expect out of a laptop that costs three times as much. The higher-end new models can be customized to cost upwards of $500 without a keyboard, monitor, or mouse (all additions a NUC will need to attain full functionality).

Because of their size, no NUCs come with an optical drive, nor do they come preinstalled with a ready-out-of-the-box version of Windows. This means that if you plan on getting one, be sure you’ve acquired a licensed copy of the operating system loaded onto a flashable USB thumb-drive before you get the NUC shipped, or at the very least order an external DVD drive that plugs in via USB to handle a disc.

As anyone doing the math out there has probably already figured out, with all the extra parts added on plus an the cost of an operating system, a NUC can easily end up costing just as much as you’d pay for a standard laptop or regular desktop, so what’s the actual point of picking a NUC over a traditional desktop PC or laptop instead?

Power in Portability

A NUC is great for a lot of reasons, but the one that trumps them all is the fact that it’s just so dang small. Some NUCs are so thin and light they’ll literally fit in your pocket, but still have the same amount of power you’d expect from a 15″ or 17″ laptop.

Intel isn’t the only one who sees the value in this either, as several other companies have begun releasing their own versions of mini-PCs to compensate. Both Google’s Chromeboxes and Apple’s Mac Mini (which predicated the first NUC by about two years) work as examples of small, portability-centric computers that can double as plug-and play media streamers or web browsers on the go, so why should you choose one of Intel’s NUCs over the cheaper, easier to set up competition?

For starters, NUC PCs are great if you’re a road warrior who needs a powerful PC that they can tow along with them when they need to power a big display at a tradeshow, or just to pull a little extra weight that a regular laptop may not be able to handle on its own. Pound for pound NUCs can offer better processors than what you might pay for in a laptop, because with the increased space and airflow that NUCs offer, Intel has been able to equip their NUCs with the full-fledged versions of their Intel Iris HD graphics chips that don’t skimp on power the way their laptop-based counterparts do.