Cheap Mini PC Under £100 — What’s Actually Worth Buying in 2026
A cheap mini PC under £100 exists — but only if you adjust your expectations. At this price, you’re buying a machine for one specific job, not a general-purpose computer. This guide is honest about that trade-off, because most articles in this space aren’t.
Under £100, the realistic options for a mini PC in 2026 are: refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny (~£80–90), refurbished Dell OptiPlex Micro (~£85–100), or a Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB, ~£75 board only). New mini PCs under £100 are nearly always N95/N97 machines with 8GB RAM — usable for basic tasks but slower than the £170 Beelink EQ12 Pro at just £70 more.
What to Realistically Expect Under £100
Under £100, your options are: refurbished business mini PCs (Dell OptiPlex, HP EliteDesk), bare-bones Intel N-series boxes with no RAM/storage, or single-board computers (Raspberry Pi 5). None of these is a general-purpose Windows desktop. Each is excellent at a specific narrow use case. Pick the right one and you’ll be satisfied. Pick wrong and you’ll spend another £100 replacing it.
Best Mini PC Options Under £100
Best Value: Refurbished Dell OptiPlex Micro (i5-8500T) — ~£80–100
A refurbished 8th-generation Intel Core i5 OptiPlex Micro is genuinely the best cheap mini PC under £100 for most people. The i5-8500T has 6 cores, runs Windows 11 (meets TPM 2.0 requirements), and handles office work, video calls, and web browsing without hesitation. You can find these on eBay UK for £80–100 with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD included. They’re ex-corporate machines, typically lightly used, with clean BIOS and no bloatware.
The caveat: no warranty beyond the seller’s return policy, and the iGPU (Intel UHD 630) is not suited to gaming or video editing. For basic productivity, this is the most cost-effective mini PC under £100 you can buy.
For Home Lab / Linux: Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB) — ~£60
The Raspberry Pi 5 isn’t a Windows desktop. It runs Raspberry Pi OS (Debian-based) and requires a separate power supply, case, and microSD card — total cost around £90–100 fully kitted out. What it excels at: Pi-hole, Home Assistant, lightweight Docker, and learning Linux. For those specific use cases, nothing at this price comes close. See our home server mini PC guide for more options.
Bare-Bones Intel N100 Kit — ~£90–120 (with RAM+SSD)
Bare-bones mini PCs (no RAM, no storage) can be found under £70. Add 16GB SO-DIMM DDR5 (~£25) and a 256GB M.2 NVMe (~£20) and you’re at £115 total — still cheaper than a ready-to-run N100 machine. The trade-off is the extra setup time. Worth it if you already have spare RAM or SSD, not worth it if you need to buy everything new.
Why We Don’t Recommend Most “Mini PCs Under £100” on Amazon
Most mini PCs sold new under £100 on Amazon UK use Intel Celeron N5095 or older chips. These don’t support Windows 11 natively, have 4GB soldered RAM that cannot be upgraded, use slow eMMC storage instead of NVMe, and ship with 12-month warranties from unknown sellers with minimal UK support. They feel fast for the first week and frustrating after that. The refurbished OptiPlex approach gives you better hardware for the same or lower price.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a good mini PC under £100? Yes — a refurbished Dell OptiPlex Micro or HP EliteDesk Mini (8th–10th gen Core i5) from eBay UK costs £80–100 and outperforms any new mini PC at that price. Look for 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD.
What can a £100 mini PC do? Office work, web browsing, video calls, 4K streaming, and basic file management. It cannot do gaming, video editing, or AI workloads. Use it for its strengths.
Is a mini PC under £100 good for gaming? No. Budget under £200 for a gaming-capable mini PC — you need at least a Ryzen 5 5500U (Beelink SER5 Pro, ~£210) for playable framerates at 1080p.
