Acemagic Kron Mini K1 review: Sharp looks, little substance, and oddly overpriced

Acemagic's emergence as a solid mini PC manufacturer is underlined by a handful of solid machines in recent months, including the decent budget-friendly Vista V1 Mini PC and the higher-end Matrix Mini M1. Although they're both at opposite ends of the pricing and performance spectrum, the Chinese-made mini PCs share a few things in common, including good value for money as well as a sturdy, portable, and attractive chassis.

The Kron Mini K1 is a new model that is nearly identical to the Matrix Mini M1 but fitted with the four-year-old, mid-range Intel Core i5-12600H processor (or the three-year-old AMD Ryzen 5-7430U). However, at a steep retail price of £559 for the base model with 16GB RAM – or $559 in the US, reduced to $359 – this cosy desktop companion will need to do a heck of a lot of work to justify its worth considering over alternatives with newer hardware.

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Acemagic Kron Mini K1 review: Design

We love the overall design aesthetic of Acemagic mini PCs; this is more or less consistent across all its models. The rounded corners contribute to a simple yet refreshing design, almost resembling the stunning Mac Mini. It's identical in every way to the Matrix Mini M1 – apart from a much more appealing silver finish versus the oppressively corporate gray.

Certainly, it'll fit into your home office or desk setup without standing out. Plenty of mini PC makers opt for bolder and louder design choices, like aggressive grills, hardened edges, and metallic flourishes – but the Kron Mini K1's stripped-back design choices neatly reflect its simplicity as a plug-and-play machine. This may not necessarily be the sort of mini PC to suit the personality of a power user, but it doesn't look too out of place on a tidy desk. You can also mount it onto a compatible monitor with brackets provided in the box.

Its similarities to the Matrix M1 Mini include its 128 x 128 x 41mm dimensions and a weight that's just 5g lighter (515g). Although Geekom's units are a tad deeper (49mm), they tend to be a little smaller, measuring 117 x 112mm wide and deep. They're also roughly 130g heavier at 652g. While there's no beating the Vista Mini M1 for portability – with this entry-level machine measuring 100 x 100 x 32g and weighing more than half (245g) of the Kron Mini K1 – all these mini PCs are plenty compact and light enough for daily transport.

On the front, you'll find the sole USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port alongside two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports for company, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the rear, however, you'll benefit from a plethora of additional ports, including four USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort 1.4b, an Ethernet port, and a DC input.

While we question the need for six USB-A ports over one USB-C port, they're arranged smartly overall. We would also bemoan the lack of an SD card reader, meaning you'll likely need a dock or converter if you need to transfer media files. There's only support available for Wi-Fi 6, rather than Wi-Fi 6E (which is found in most new mini PCs), as well as Bluetooth 5.2 – a couple of generations below the up-to-date 5.4 standard

Acemagic Kron Mini K1 review: Specs and performance

Despite a pretty lofty price tag for a mini PC, the Kron Mini K1 doesn't include the very latest hardware. Alongside 16GB DDR4 RAM, integrated Intel UHD Graphics, and a 512GB SSD, it features the 12-core Intel Core i5-12600H processor. This is an Alder Lake processor first released in January 2022, and was originally optimized for high-performance graphics at a reasonable budget. By today's standards, however, it's well behind the curve.

In our performance testing with Geekbench 6, it registered a single-threaded score of 2,233. This, admittedly, is not a bad result. It's slightly below average when compared with modern CPUs and enough to handle simple, day-to-day tasks. The multi-core performance, however, was abysmal compared with the 2026 norm, registering 5,508. By way of comparison, the Acemagic Matrix Mini M1 features the Intel Core i9-13900HK (14-core) and registered 2,806 and 8,912 for each result, respectively – and it retails at the same price.

Its GPU was also underwhelming, registering 9,630 in our OpenCL test. This isn't as bad a result, considering it beats the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q's result of 7,995 (also featuring integrated Intel UHD Graphics). The Matrix Mini M1, however, scored a much healthier 13,514 with its Intel Iris Xe Graphics chip. Overall, it's a middling result – but perhaps more in line with the price you pay for this device. The SSD speeds, meanwhile, are slightly below average for mini PCs, with reads of 3,368MB/s and writes of 2,538MB/s.

Acemagic Kron Mini K1 review: Is it worth it?

We simply don't believe the Kron Mini K1 represents value for money, considering its surprisingly high retail price point. At £559, the device is approximately £150 more expensive than the Acemagic Matrix Mini M1, which is better in every respect, apart from its less appealing gray finish.

The device itself looks nice and is incredibly portable. Beyond that, its connectivity options are broadly useful – if you could forgive Wi-Fi 6 instead of 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 versus 5.4. But these qualities are sadly not enough to make up for the out-of-date hardware fitted within the body. If you're looking for something that can handle multiple workloads at once, it won't meet the standard you'd expect from modern devices based on our benchmarking tests. That said, it's more than enough for a mini PC that you could deploy for simple, day-to-day tasks – but we can't justify recommending this at the current retail price tag. If you find the Kron Mini K1 available at a discount, then it might be worth considering for an entry-level device. But that discount would have to be significant.

Acemagic Kron Mini K1 review specifications