HP Pro Mini 400 G9 2023, Core i5-13500T, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Black

A tiny, efficient office worker that stays cool and quiet. Just don't expect to upgrade it or play games on it.

The i5-13500T surprised us. It's a 35W chip, so it won't win any benchmark drag races, but for everyday office work it feels snappy. The 512GB NVMe SSD helps a lot here. Boot times are quick, apps launch fast, and the whole thing stays whisper quiet. The integrated UHD 770 graphics are fine for video and light photo work, but they land in the bottom third of our database. If you're rendering 3D or editing 4K video, this isn't your machine.

The Mac Studio M3 Ultra is in a completely different universe, both in price and performance. That's for creative pros who need serious GPU muscle. The Dell Tower Plus and Lenovo Legion are full-sized towers with dedicated graphics, so they'll crush this in gaming and heavy workloads, but they're also huge and power-hungry. The Pro Mini 400 G9's real competition is other mini PCs. It's a solid choice for office use, but the lack of DDR5 and PCIe slots puts it behind some newer small-form-factor options.

At $872 USD, this is a fair price for a business mini PC with Windows 11 Pro and a 13th gen i5. You're paying for the form factor and HP's security features, not raw power. If you need a reliable desk machine that disappears behind a monitor, it's worth it. If you want upgradeability, look elsewhere.

The HP Pro Mini 400 G9 is a tiny desktop that knows exactly what it is: a quiet, efficient office workhorse. The one thing to know? It sips power and stays cool, but don't expect to crack it open and start swapping parts. This is a sealed business box, not a tinkerer's playground. With a 14-core i5-13500T, 16GB of DDR4, and a 512GB NVMe SSD, it'll chew through spreadsheets and browser tabs without breaking a sweat. Just don't ask it to game.

If you're looking for a machine to game on or upgrade over time, this isn't it. Go get a small tower with a dedicated GPU and standard PCIe slots instead. The Dell Tower Plus or Lenovo Legion will serve you far better.

The HP Pro Mini 400 G9 is a solid, no-drama office PC. It's compact, efficient, and gets the job done. Buy it if you want a clean desk and don't plan on upgrading internals. Skip it if you need graphics power or room to grow.