As endless as this discount-driven week might feel, we are in the final hours of Amazon Prime Day (or Prime Week, as we've affectionately named it), and time is running out on its price-slashing mania. Trust me, I'm just as exhausted by the relentless onslaught of "lowest-ever" and "the best AA batteries I've used" headlines, but this discount means something special to me.
• Shop all Amazon Prime Day deals
Mini PCs do not get the respect they deserve. In fact, I don't think most people have ever used one, or perhaps even known that Windows 11 options were available in a similar vein to Apple's Mac mini. We're big advocates of these pint-size Geekom units, but the biggest thing keeping me from recommending my model was its astronomical price — until these A8 Max AI deals went live.
No monitor? Where's the rest of it?
Mini PCs aren't completely ignored. When I first shared how I was sick of laptop docks and spaghetti cables, it garnered a healthy amount of attention and a totally fair reaction to the price of the Geekom A8 Max AI. Almost a thousand dollars is a lot to ask for a laptop processor contained in a shell the size of a sandwich when you don't get a monitor, keyboard, or any kind of mouse.
Geekom's Prime Day deal certainly helps things with a 20% discount, bringing the mini PC down to a much more reasonable price, but there's still an issue for people who don't have spare peripherals lying around their home or office. Personally, I still use a previously reviewed Alienware's 27-inch 240Hz "AW2723DF" gaming monitor, and it happens to also be on sale.
Better than Steam Deck? But, this isn't a console
Good point, and no, a mini PC isn't supposed to be an alternative to a handheld gaming PC like Valve's highly praised Steam Deck or, my personal favorite, the (temporarily at Walmart) $549.99 ASUS ROG Ally. However, these portable PCs have undoubtedly shown the value of integrated graphics in mobile processors. In particular, the Radeon 780M-equivalent chip used in the "Z1 Extreme" ROG Ally.
I've spent an almost embarrassing number of hours playing my library of PC games on a Steam Deck and, more recently, the ROG Ally, and I can tell you without getting into nerdy spec sheets that the latter is more powerful. So, when I saw that both models of the Geekom A8 Max AI mini PC use the same integrated graphics chip as ASUS' handheld, I knew that I'd be fine for occasional gaming in whatever's holding my obsession.
Essentially, if you can play it on a Steam Deck, then you can play it on the Geekom A8 Max AI. It comes with Windows 11 Pro installed, and I even dual-boot into Fedora KDE (don't tell anyone) to check on the progress of Valve's Proton compatibility layer that runs Windows games on Linux PCs. This little box does it all, and I always come back to Windows for that familiarity and compatibility.
When does Amazon Prime Day end?
This year, Prime Day ends on Saturday, July 12, at 2:59 AM ET — which is 11:59 PM PT, just before midnight on Friday for the West Coast. For those in the United Kingdom, it's 11:59 PM BST on Friday, July 11, separate from the United States.
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