aying $1,785 for a computer only to realize you cannot even boot an operating system out of the box is a tough pill to swallow. Chinese manufacturer Aoostar has rolled out a "budget-friendly" configuration of its NEX395 mini PC. Visually, it looks like a flat, unassuming slab reminiscent of an external optical drive, yet under the hood sits a flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor running at up to 140W TDP, paired with 64 GB of RAM. The company slashed the price tag using a simple trick: they completely ditched the internal solid-state drive. The high-end silicon is ready to crunch numbers, but it has nowhere to save files.
The version with a pre-installed 1 TB SSD will run you $1,930. Opting for the base model means grabbing a screwdriver and buying your own drive on day one. To their credit, the engineers were generous with I/O and expansion: the board houses three M.2 storage slots, while the chassis features dual high-speed USB4 ports and two 2.5GbE Ethernet jacks.
The real catch lies in longevity and practical engineering. The 64 GB of RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard, ruling out any future memory upgrades. On top of that, trapping a blistering 140W chip inside a cramped, slim enclosure almost guarantees screaming cooling fans and thermal throttling under sustained loads.
For everyday buyers, this is an ultra-niche curiosity. You pay a hefty premium for extreme compactness, get zero day-one utility without adding your own drive, and face severe upgrade bottlenecks. This barebones kit only makes sense if you specifically need a pocket-sized processing hub for specialized compute workloads.