Intel N150
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 4 of 16 processors by recommenders
Cheap, low-power x86 mini PC chip people use for home servers, NAS, and transcoding, with mainline Linux support. Critics say its power rating is optimistic.
Cheap, low-power x86 mini PC chip people use for home servers, NAS, and transcoding, with mainline Linux support. Critics say its power rating is optimistic.
22 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 95%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 21 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good value for the price
“you can get a better deal all around with an x86 mini PC with a N150 CPU”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” “both are a touch better than N100 for usually around the same price”
Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “RK3588 and RK3576 video decoders support merged in the upstream Linux Kernel” “You can still get N150s with 16gb ram in a case for $200 all in.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” - Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “The Raspberry Pi Interactive Timeline · 2006–2026”
- Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150”
Low power draw and quiet
“they have a great watt/performance ratio along with a GPU that is very well supported”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” “The 6-7W TDP in specs is a lie, but these CPUs still have fairly modest consumption”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150” “a brand-new power-sipping N150 box does transcoding waaaay better”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “WiiFin – Jellyfin Client for Nintendo Wii” - Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Qwen3.6-27B: Flagship-Level Coding in a 27B Dense Model”
- Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Intel Launches Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake Mobile Processors”
Mainline Linux and driver support
“Being able to install a mainline OS and common drivers and just get to work is valuable.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” “they have a great watt/performance ratio along with a GPU that is very well supported”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” Handles transcoding and home servers
“the N150 has by far been my favorite out of those for real-world workloads rather than tinkering”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” “I run Proxmox on it, with OpnSense and a couple other things in virtual machines.”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “How to Turn Anything into a Router” “a brand-new power-sipping N150 box does transcoding waaaay better”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “WiiFin – Jellyfin Client for Nintendo Wii” - Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: MiniPCs.zip (charting the pareto frontier of MiniPCs)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Power rating higher than spec
“The 6-7W TDP in specs is a lie, but these CPUs still have fairly modest consumption”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150”
Other processors people recommend
The four most recommended other processors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple M5 | 48 | 14 | 77% | 11 | — | Approved |
| AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 | 44 | 14 | 76% | 11 | — | Approved |
| AMD Ryzen | 25 | 12 | 68% | 11 | 1.4 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Intel N150This page | 21 | 1 | 95% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Apple M4 | 21 | 5 | 81% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
24 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You can get an Intel N150 with 16GB RAM and an SSD for $250+ CAD”
“An N150 can do 2.5gbit, probably 10gbit but i haven’t personally tried.”
“carefree NAS/docker host for years”
“Intel N150 mini PCs are probably a better choice than RPi for those types of tasks.”
“I've never had a single problem with PCIE on N100/N150/N200.”
“they all have crazy PCIe / memory subsystem data corruption issues”
“use an almost silent N150 minipc as my daily driver now”
“a brand-new power-sipping N150 box does transcoding waaaay better”
“has been working pretty well”
“I run Proxmox on it, with OpnSense and a couple other things in virtual machines.”
“both are a touch better than N100 for usually around the same price”
“ultra-power-efficient N100/N150”
“they have a great watt/performance ratio along with a GPU that is very well supported”
“Being able to install a mainline OS and common drivers and just get to work is valuable.”
“considering those Nxxx options exist”
“it often makes more sense to go with an N150 bitty box than an ARM SBC”
“the N150 has by far been my favorite out of those for real-world workloads rather than tinkering”
“you can get a better deal all around with an x86 mini PC with a N150 CPU”
“You can still get N150s with 16gb ram in a case for $200 all in.”
“they tend to pull 5-8w at idle, while this is 15w”
“get an intel n150 based mini pc (aoostar makes a nice one)”
“The 6-7W TDP in specs is a lie, but these CPUs still have fairly modest consumption”
“I might pick up another if I can get it for ~$140.”
“For ~$150 it packs a punch!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.