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Mini PC maker Aerofara’s new TANK56 is a compact desktop computer with the specs of a mid-range laptop including an AMD Ryzen 7 5600U processor. But it has more ports than most modern laptops, and more upgrade options thanks to an M.2 2280 slot for solid state storage, room for a 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD, and two SODIMM slots for memory.
While the TANK56 mini PC has a list price of $669 and up, it’s currently on sale from Aerofara’s web store for $499 and up.
The starting price is for a model with 8GB of DDR4 memory, a 250GB M.2 SSD, and Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. But you can also configure the system with up to 16GB of RAM and 500GB of storage or perform your own upgrades.
At the heart of the computer is a mainboard featuring a 15-watt, 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600U mobile processor with AMD Radeon Vega 7 integrated graphics. While that chip is more than a year old at this point, it’s a reasonably powerful versatile processor that should support most basic computing tasks as well as output to multiple displays: the computer has two HDMI ports and a USB Type-C port, so you should be able to connect up to three 4K screens.
Other ports include a Gigabit Ethernet port, a 3.5mm audio jack, a microSD card reader, and four USB 3.0 Type-A ports plus a DC power input jack. Wireless capabilities include support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 thanks to an Intel AX210 wireless card.
The system is actively cooled (there’s a fan in the case), and has a body that measures 126 x 112 x 26mm (5″ x 4.4″ x 1″).
While the internals of the Aerofara TANK56 are new, the design is not – the company seems to be reusing the same chassis for this model that it had used in the Aerofara Aero 3 mini PC, a system with an 8th-gen Intel Core processor and Windows 10 Pro software.
via AndroidTVBox and Aerofara (YouTube)
This is neat. But, when are they going to give us this CPU and a pile of m.2 slots, 32GB of RAM capacity, then multiple mini PCIe slots, and a 12v power jack?
It seems easier to produce that instead of integrating all these USB, video, micro SD slots… All those things come in mini PCIe form factor.