Scan 3XS NUC N16 review

With so much power at its disposal, the N16 would make a great living room PC. It comes with a VESA mount, so you can attach it easily to the back of your TV or monitor, and it has all the connectivity and networking options you’d need for this use. It comes with a 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card already fitted, and its internal antennas mean you don’t have to attach any external adaptors to get a good signal.

We didn’t even need to press the power button to get the PC going, either, as the N16’s user-friendly BIOS let us wake the PC via LAN from both Sleep mode and when switched off. You’ll need to enable the Deep S4/S5 options in the Power section of the BIOS interface to take advantage of this, but it’s very easy to do and once we’d downloaded a simple Wake from LAN app on our phone, we were able to turn on the N16 on with a single button in the app.

The Scan 3XS NUC N16 is a superb mini PC. Thanks to its tall chassis, it has more storage than many mini PCs, and its superb processing power and graphics performance make it a great alternative to a laptop or budget PC. At £600, it’s still quite expensive, but it’s by far one of the most capable mini PCs we’ve tested. If you don’t mind a bigger case and aren’t interested in games, the Zotac ZBox IQ01 Plus will save you some money, but for those who want everything in a tiny chassis the NUC N16 is the PC to have. It’s a Best Buy.