GMKtek Intel N150 Mini PC Setup And Review

A while back I bought a GMKtek G3 which I reviewed here.  I put it in the guest room on the TV and it serves up as a Logitechmedia client to a nearby stereo.  Also, I use it as a Police Scanner with an RTL-SDR device.  Lastly, it can be used to stream anything in a browser such as Sling, Netflix, Hulu, etc.   Something happened recently which led me to purchase a new GMKtek Intel N150, G2 Plus Nucbox.

A reader CC’d me on an email to GMKtek.  This person was quite unhappy with their Nucbox.  Now I don’t mind when someone emails me and tells me their harrowing tales but I do mind when adding me to an email implies that I’ll write a bad review about that product for them.   I do so love writing negative reviews but I don’t have anything negative to say about GMKtek.  I contacted GMKtek and told them I had nothing to do with the email and that I didn’t know the person.   The good news is that they told me they’d investigate and try to help the author.  Right after that I have no idea what happened.  GMKtek treated me awesome though.

So while looking at the latest offerings I was kind of shocked to see an Intel N150 with 12 GB of onboard DDR5 RAM, and a 512 GB M.2 2242 SSD with Windows 11 pre-installed.  The price was amazing as well at just less than $150.  By comparison my first PC, a 486SX cost nearly $3000.

Update GMKtek Intel N150 Mini PC

Not much to update here.  My G3 allows me to add a larger SSD and more memory.  This G2 Plus that I just got only allows for upgrading the SSD drive.  I do not like Windows at all so I removed the 512 GB SSD and replaced it with a 2TB M.2 drive.  After that I installed LinuxMint on it.  I’ll move my G3 to our den or something.

Although the RAM cannot be upgraded, 12GB of DDR5 onboard RAM makes Linux scream.

Distribution Testing

LinuxMint Gotcha

I installed LinuxMint and was immediately met with a couple of issues.  One was no sound, and the other was that my TV display was not recognized and the boxes to change the resolution were grayed out.   LinuxMint does permit you to easily update the kernel and after I did I got an HDMI sound device and was able to change the resolution on my TV screen in the guest room.

I was able to update the stock kernel (6.8 something) to 6.11 something.  Go to UPDATE MANAGER > VIEW > LINUX KERNELS and follow the directions.

Update Kernel (click pics to enlarge)

And that is all it took to get the driver support I needed.

Ubuntu

Everything worked out of the box.  Not surprising since the shipping kernel for Ubuntu 24.04.2 is 6.11 which is what made everything work on LinuxMint.

john@NucBoxG2-Plus:~$ uname -a
Linux NucBoxG2-Plus 6.11.0-19-generic #19~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Feb 17 11:51:52 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I had to select the HMDI output sound device to get sound but it does stay selected after a reboot.  With previous versions of Ubuntu it would not stay as the default sound device and a little magic needed to be performed to keep it persistent.  This is great and an improvement.

I love Ubuntu and I added Cinnamon Desktop to make it a little more LinuxMint like. And I’ve decided to stick with Ubuntu 24.04.2.

GMKtek Intel N150 Mini PC Key Features

I don’t really do benchmarks.  But I will do an overview of the G2 Plus Nucbox.

• Intel N150 Up to 3.6 GHz
• 12 GB of DDR5 RAM onboard (not upgradeable)
• Upgradeable SSD (comes with 512 GB with Windows 11 preinstalled)
• Two LAN ports 1000M (could make this a firewall appliance)
• WiFi 6
• Bluetooth 5.2
• 2 HDMI outputs and 1 Display Port (DP 1.4)
• 3 USB Ports 3.2
• USB -C Port

And they give you an extra cover so you can change from the charcoal color to blue.  The bottom of the G2 Plus also has LED’s that are lit up.  The color can be changed in the BIOS.  I kind of dig it but since it is in my guest room it might make things too bright in there.

Getting in the BIOS just requires pressing the ESC key on start up.  The LED settings are found under the BOOT section.  And the lights can indeed be disabled.  And that is probably what needs to be done at some point.

Final Verdict

I love these GMKtek mini PC’s.  The price is remarkably low as well depending on how you configure them.  I do have a tiny wish list though.  Before I list it though I would like to say that my “dream” Mini PC exists at GMKtek and I’m just specifically referring to the G2 Plus.

• 2.5 GB LAN Ports
• Upgradeable DDR5 RAM
• Just one more USB 3 slot (I have an RTL-SDR, a DAC, and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo).

The Nucbox K6 seems to fit that bill to a “T”.

On a slight downside when I went to download drivers the GMKtek website wouldn’t let me and threw up a message about too much traffic.  A few hours later it worked.  It was a bit weird.

If you have a need for a Mini PC you should look no further than GMKtek.

JOHN’S TECH BLOG THINKS GMKtek MINI PC’S ARE THE BEST THING GOING