- Minisforum nonetheless has no launch date for its long-promised M2 Professional mini PC
- The cheaper M2 mini PC sacrifices flagship graphics energy for decrease entry pricing
- A tiny 520-gram desktop now handles native AI fashions with out relying completely on cloud processing
At CES 2026, Minisforum unveiled the M2 Pro mini PC, a tool that guarantees to be a flagship system for high-end customers, powered by an Intel Core Extremely X9 388H processor coupled with a discrete-class Intel Arc B390 built-in graphics.
Nevertheless, 5 months after the launch, the promised M2 Professional has but to be shipped, to the frustration of potential patrons.
As a substitute, Minisforum has now released a standard M2 version for budget-conscious patrons.
Minisforum launched an entry-level M2 mini PC
This mini PC carries an Intel Core Extremely 7 356H Panther Lake chip, a 16-thread processor that runs at 45 watts, which lacks the uncooked energy of the Extremely X9 388H discovered within the M2 Professional, but it stays a reliable processor that prices considerably much less.
The Minisforum M2 measures 130 x 127 x 50 mm, which means it will probably slot in your palm, and features a 120W energy adapter.
It weighs solely 520 grams and helps a VESA mount, which implies it may be connected to the rear of a monitor.
Underneath the hood, it comes with two SODIMM slots that help as much as 128GB of DDR5-5600 RAM modules, and likewise hosts two M.2 2280 slots, helps PCIe 4.0 x4 storage for quick information entry, and may maintain as much as 8TB of NVMe storage.
There’s additionally a further M.2 2230 slot that homes an Intel BE200 wi-fi card with Wi-Fi 7. This card offers Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity for wi-fi peripherals and headphones.
For bodily connectivity, this system makes use of one USB4 Kind-C port working at 40 Gbps for quick information transfers.
It helps three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-A ports that ship 10 Gbps every for connecting exterior gadgets.
A single USB 2.0 Kind-A port offers 480 Mbps for legacy equipment like keyboards or mice.
Video output choices consist of 1 HDMI 2.1 port and one DisplayPort 1.4 port. Two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports use the RTL8125D controller for wired networking reliability.
There’s a 3.5mm audio jack, which completes the connectivity suite for headphone or speaker use.
To sort out heating, which is a typical downside for small-sized gadgets, the M2 comes with twin warmth pipes alongside a single cooling fan.
Minisforum claims that with this configuration, at full load, the CPU hits 78 levels Celsius with solely 42.5dB of noise.
Constructed for AI
Minisforum markets the M2 for AI duties utilizing its mixed 90 TOPS of processing energy (50 from the NPU and 40 from the GPU),
This permits customers to run open-source fashions like GPT-OSS 20B and Gemma-4-26B-A4B regionally, a helpful characteristic for testing AI tools with out counting on cloud companies.
The Minisforum M2 begins at $575 for a barebones mannequin with none reminiscence or storage.
Nevertheless, a pre-configured model with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD prices $1,039.
A budget-conscious consumer may fairly query whether or not a system that greater than doubles in worth after fundamental configuration really serves their wants.
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