Beelink launches affordable Wildcat Lake mini PC with phone-grade storage

Beelink has introduced the EQi Intel Wildcat Lake, and it stands as an affordable mini PC for those who require a system that can handle basic tasks and moderate workloads. It’s powered by the Intel Core 3 304, the entry-level processor within the series.

This is the same Wildcat Lake processor that’s powering some of the affordable MacBook Neo rivals, and interestingly, Beelink has paired it with phone-grade storage. Specifically, the mini PC ships with 512GB of UFS 3.1 flash storage.

For reference, UFS 3.1 is faster than eMMC, but it’s much slower than the NVMe SSDs that most mini PCs ship with. Specifically, its theoretical speed can reach up to 2.1 GB/s, making it sit close to the PCIe 4.0 x1 standard.

The good part is that users won’t be stuck with this slow storage, as there are two M.2 slots for SSDs. Of course, only one of them has support for PCIe 4.0 x2 speeds, while the other one maxes out at x1 bandwidth. It’s also worth noting that each of the slots can hold up to a 4TB SSD (2TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD curr. $369.99 on Amazon).

Another good part about the mid-tier and upper-end configurations of the mini PC is support for DDR5 RAM. So, the memory that they ship with can be swapped out if required. The base configuration, on the other hand, features LPDDR5 RAM, which is soldered.

It sports a compact form factor, but there’s a rich selection of ports. Here’s a breakdown:

• 2x Thunderbolt 4
• 1x 10Gbps USB Type-C
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
• 1x 2.5G LAN
• 1x 10G LAN
• 2x USB 2.0 Type-A
• 1x HDMI with support for 4K 60Hz output
• 1x 3.5mm audio

WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, a built-in 85W PSU, and a silent cooling setup are among the other highlights of this affordable Wildcat Lake mini PC. Beelink is currently taking pre-orders for the system, and the configuration with 16GB of RAM costs $509. The one with 24GB of memory is going for $659, while the 32GB configuration costs $739. All of them come with 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage.