Features and Photos

The most obvious thing about the NUCs design is its size, so let’s just put its dimensions out there. It is 1.32 inches tall, 4.59 inches wide, and 4.41 inches from front to back. That is around 26.7 cubic inches, to put that in perspective an average 3.5 inch hard drive is 23.6 cubic inches! Inside Intel has packed in an i3 CPU (it is also available in i5 and i7 configurations) not an Atom like we would have seen a few years ago in this form factor. On top of that you have room for your ram, SSD, WiFi and you have all of the standard connections including Ethernet. Heck my Ultrabook doesn’t even have Ethernet.

So starting at the front we have two USB 3.0 connections, a combination microphone/headphone plug and behind the black panel is also an IR Receiver.

With the NUC being so tiny they did include a Kensington lock on the side of the aluminum frame to keep it from coming up missing. Then again the lock is going to take up as much room if not more than the NUC.

Around back is where most everything is going on. We have two more USB 3.0 ports for a total of four on the entire NUC. You have the Intel NIC and power plug. For display options you have a micro HDMI and a Micro DisplayPort. Last but not least are the two inch wide vents along the top to help keep things cool.

The entire top of the NUC is covered in a black plastic. In the corner you have the power button. The power indicator lights up blue when the NUC is powered on.

For accessories you really only get two things with the NUC and it is all you need. You get a power cord and then the VESA mount. I like that the power cord doesn’t have a large power brick on the end, the design is basically just like what you would get with your laptop. The VESA mount is really simple, there are two screw holes for you to hang the NUC and the other 8 are for two different VESA mount sizes. One set fits monitors and the other fits TV’s. Both would be extremely useful with the NUC as it is at home in your office as well as your living room.