14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past few years, Intel's Next Unit of Computing seems to have really gotten the ball rolling in the terrain belonging to case makers. Sales and shipments reports about it have been conspicuously hard to come by, but cases seem to be announced pretty often.
The one we have in our sights right now comes from Tranquil PC and doesn't have a special name, being simply known as the Tranquil PC NUC case.
The same cannot be said about the pre-configured versions of the product though. Which is to say, the NUC systems that Tranquil PC has included with the cases.
The company markets the products under the ABEL “H Series.” You can buy fully built NUC PCs that way, instead of going the long way around.
And by that we mean that, normally, you would have to buy the NUC from Intel, with the regular, squarish case.
Then you'd have to purchase the Tranquil PC case separately, or whatever other NUC case you find in stores.
After that, it would be up to you still to swap the cases, through judicious use of screwdrivers and a healthy degree of caution.
The hardware is really small after all, so you wouldn't want to drop it or scratch it with the tip of your tools.
Anyway, the Tranquil PC NUC case is fanless and doesn't even try to hide its resemblance to a heatsink, since that's as important a role as actually offering the PC housing.
There are NUC configuration with Haswell Core i-series CPUs up for order, like the Core i3-4140U (£399.00 / $653 / €480 for the micro-board system + the case itself).
You can use it as a media system (not unlike an HTPC), an industrial PC, in digital signage, even instead of a stronger desktop if you're not after gaming.
