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Oct 26, 2023

Blackview MP200 Mini PC Review: Affordable desktop solution for casual users

A Mini PC that delivers impressive performance for its price, handling everyday tasks with ease, and is ideal for casual users. Mini PCs, such as Apple's Mac mini, have always held a special place in

A Mini PC that delivers impressive performance for its price, handling everyday tasks with ease, and is ideal for casual users.

Mini PCs, such as Apple's Mac mini, have always held a special place in my heart. They offer a compact form factor and are a perfect solution for those who want a powerful computer that doesn't take up too much space on their desk or room. However, more often than not, they carry a high price tag. This cost doesn't even include the additional expenses for a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals.

This is why when Blackview, the makers of some of the best rugged smartphones, approached me with their MP200 Mini PC for review, I was intrigued. This Mini PC carries a modest price tag but packs a lot high-end features. It comes with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed and boasts a processor with a clock speed of up to 4.5GHz.

I've been using the Blackview MP200 Mini PC as my daily driver for the past week or so, and I must admit, I'm pleasantly surprised by this compact powerhouse. Despite a few drawbacks, this little box delivers a lot for its price. There's a lot to unpack here, so without further ado, let's dive into our full review of the Blackview MP200 Mini PC.

About this review: Blackview supplied Pocketnow with a review unit of its MP200 Mini PC, which we tested for about a week. The company had no input into the contents of this review.

The Blackview MP200 is a powerful and versatile mini PC that is perfect for home use and casual work. It is equipped Intel Core i5-11400H processor, 16GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD, making it capable of handling even the most demanding tasks. It even supports up to 8K display output. It also features a compact and portable design, allowing you to easily carry it wherever you need to go.

The Blackview MP200 Mini PC is currently priced at $349 on Amazon. However, thanks to an on-page coupon in and our exclusive coupon code "AETLF4TV", you can secure this mini PC for as low as $314. This variant packs an Intel Core i5-11400H processor, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. As for the color options, the Blackview MP200 Mini PC is available in two color options: Black and Blue.

Upon unboxing the box, you'll find the MP200 Mini PC itself, a power adapter for keeping your device juiced up, a base stand, an HDMI cable, an SSD mounting bracket, and some paperwork containing user manual and warranty information.

Starting with the design, the Blackview MP200 is, well, quite compact. It features a plastic casing with a lined texture on the sides and pored grills on the front and back for fan air circulation. However, it's worth noting that the casing tends to attract fingerprints.

There are two options for setting up the PC on your desktop. You can either use the included base stand to elevate it, tucking it neatly behind your monitor, or place it directly on the desk. Even though the chassis is made out of plastic, it feels solid enough. The device is also quite lightweight, coming in at just 680 grams.

The base stand is designed with rubber pads, both for the mini PC to sit in and at the bottom, ensuring the whole PC stays in place. The bottom of the PC houses two screws that can be opened to add external RAM and/or an HDD/SSD. The kit to open the casing is included in the box.

The design, in general, is quite simplistic with no RGB lighting and very minimal branding — the Blackview logo is tucked away in one corner of the device and that's it. All in all, it's a pretty compact PC and you will easily be able to carry it in your bag, should you need to.

Taking a look at the connectivity options, the Blackview MP200 comes with plenty of I/O ports. On the front of the device, you'll find the power button positioned at the top. Just below it is the 3.5mm headphone jack for audio output. Further down, there are two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports for high-speed data transfer, followed by a single USB-C port.

On the back of the device, you'll find two additional USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. Alongside these, there's an HDMI port and a DisplayPort for video output, as well as a Gigabit Ethernet port for wired internet connectivity. The DC power port, which powers the device, is also located on the back. It's safe to say that this device doesn't skimp on ports and should satisfy the needs of most users.

We're also happy to report that the USB-C port can also be used for display output and, combined with the HDMI and DisplayPort, allows for the simultaneous connection of up to three monitors. All three ports support up to 4K@60Hz, while the DisplayPort can go up to 8K.

In terms of specifications, the Blackview MP200 Mini PC is powered by the mid-tier Intel Core i5-11400H processor. This two-year-old hexa-core chipset comes with 12 threads and 12 MB of L3 cache. It operates at a base clock speed of 2.7 GHz, which can turbo boost up to 4.5 GHz under heavy workloads. It's also worth noting that this chipset has a configurable TDP of 45W or 35W, allowing you to balance performance and power consumption as per your needs.

However, it's worth noting that there is no dedicated graphics card in this device. Instead, graphics processing is handled by the integrated Intel UHD GPU, which only has 16 execution units. As such, while it can handle basic tasks, you shouldn't expect it to deliver the highest graphics performance (more on this below).

As mentioned earlier, the Blackview MP200 Mini PC is available only in a single variant, featuring 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. If you find the built-in storage insufficient, you can easily expand it with a 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD up to 2TB. The RAM can also be increased up to a whopping 128GB using the dual-channel SO-DIMM slots. The kit to open up the Mini PC is provided in the box.

In terms of connectivity, this Mini PC is equipped with a built-in Wi-Fi 6 module and Bluetooth 5.2. Blackview promises downlink speeds of up to 1.3 Gbps. Lastly, the MP200 runs on Windows 11 Pro out of the box — the latest version of Windows — so you'll be able to run most of your work-related and college apps on this device.

Once you have all the cables in place and power up the box, you're greeted with the familiar Windows setup screen. Although Blackview warns you might not be able to use the Wi-Fi module during setup, I faced no such issues. However, if you do face this issue, you always have the option to connect your device to the internet via Ethernet.

The setup process is standard, prompting you to connect to Wi-Fi, sign in to your Microsoft account, among other steps. One thing you'll notice immediately upon powering up the device is the fan. It kicks in as soon as the device is powered on and is quite audible, especially when compared to my M1 MacBook Pro, which is silent 99% of the time.

Nonetheless, once the setup is complete, you're welcomed by the typical Windows screen. As with most Windows devices, there are thousands of updates ready to be installed out of the box. You might also notice some icons that aren't typically visible on other Windows laptops, such as Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Prime Video. However, these are merely advertisements and clicking on them initiates an app download.

On a positive note, though, the software is largely free of bloatware, which is a refreshing sight. This means you get a clean, clutter-free user experience right from the start.

After a week of rigorous testing, I can safely say that the Blackview MP200 is a highly capable Mini PC. It handles light to medium usage tasks with ease and is an ideal machine for office tasks, web browsing, video calls, and even a bit of photo editing.

In fact, I used the Blackview MP200 as my primary work PC for a week, during which it handled a variety of tasks very well. This included extensive web browsing, document writing, using messaging apps like Slack and WhatsApp, a bit of graphic design work in Figma, and video conferencing. The Blackview MP200 breezed through tasks with ease. The device also runs Windows 11 Pro smoothly, with apps loading fairly quickly, and there were minimal system slowdowns.

To test out the true performance, I conducted a number of benchmark tests, including the highly-acclaimed PCMark10, Geekbench 6, and BrowserBench. The benchmark scores for the MP200 were impressive, being on-par with other Mini PCs like the Beelink SER5 PRO and Blackview's own MP60 Mini PC. Here's a comparison of how the MP200 fares against other Mini PCs (scores via MakeUseOf and Basic-Tutorials):

PCMark 10 Scores

Blackview MP200 Mini PC

Beelink SER5 Pro

MP60 Mini PC

Total

4,507

6,207

2,069

Essentials

9,626

10,439

4,611

Productivity

6,387

9,499

3,319

Digital Content Creation

4,043

6,544

1,573

When compared to the Mac Mini 2023 in the Geekbench test, the Blackview MP200's single-core CPU performance was slightly lower, which was expected. However, the Mac Mini significantly outperformed the Blackview MP200 in the multi-core test and the GPU test, but it also comes with a significantly higher price tag. We also ran the BrowserBench test using the vanilla Microsoft Edge browser, and the results were promising:

BrowserBench

MP200 Mini PC

MP60 Mini PC

Mac Mini (M1)

JetStream2

214

94.6

229

MotionMark 1.2

664.3

1.0

1238

Speedometer 2.1

184

73.9

264

On the whole, the Blackview MP200 offers great value for its price. If you're a casual user whose usage primarily involves web browsing, using messaging apps, writing documents, reading PDFs, using spreadsheets, and even light photo editing, you'll be happy with this device.

As the title says, the Blackview MP200 Mini PC is a compelling choice for those looking for an affordable computing solution. The only real competition is from Beelink's SER5 Pro, which is powered by AMD's Ryzen 7 5800H processor and offers similar specs, but it costs slightly more — at the time of writing, anyway. If you want a sub-$300 Windows 11 desktop PC for casual day-to-day tasks, you won't likely find a better machine than the MP200.

It is no way a gaming PC, as it says on the Amazon listing page, but it's good enough to handle day-to-day media consumption, light photo editing, and even creating some graphics for your presentations. Another great use case I see of a device like this is using it as a home NAS or media center. The hardware is powerful enough, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more versatile streaming gadget.

All in all, the Blackview MP200 Mini PC offers excellent value for its price. Its performance, versatility, and compact form factor make it a worthy consideration for those looking for a cheap Windows 11 computer for their home.

The Blackview MP200 is a powerful and versatile mini PC that is perfect for home use and casual work. It is equipped Intel Core i5-11400H processor, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD, making it capable of handling even the most demanding tasks. It even supports up to 8K display output. It also features a compact and portable design, allowing you to easily carry it wherever you need to go.

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