A laptop can become a desktop with one cable, making the home-office choice less obvious than it looks.

I own both a mini PC and a laptop, and I prefer to have the mini PC on my desk. It doesn't take up much space and fades into a setup that revolves around the monitor, keyboard and mouse I actually use. The small box becomes a part of the office and an organized desk.

However, a laptop can do the same. Plug one into a big screen via HDMI, throw in a wireless keyboard and mouse, and the basic experience is pretty close. This can get even better with a compatible USB-C or Thunderbolt dock to manage displays, peripherals, networking and charging all in one. When both computers are set up at a desk, the gap between them becomes tiny.

What you're paying for and whether the computer needs to leave that desk are the more important questions.

While their name implies a desktop PC that's been hit with a shrink ray, there are plenty of mini PCs based on hardware that would be perfectly normal in a laptop. For instance, the ASUS NUC 15 Pro supports Intel's Core Ultra 7 265H (a mobile processor), along with SO-DIMM memory and M.2 SSD storage.

There's a practical explanation for that. When you're attempting to fit a whole computer into a box that's small enough to fit behind a monitor, laptop components are quite convenient. But similar parts don't guarantee identical performance.

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