How We Designed the Khadas Mind

Mini PCs have been around for a while now. They tidy up the workspace and make it easier to take our work on the road. But high-performance mini PCs still aren’t truly portable. We’re still living in a world where we have to commute with bulky laptops, constantly transfer files, and repeatedly log into different devices.

What if you had a PC that could fit right into your pocket?

After work, you head out with ease—no bulk, no burden. Once home, just plug it into a monitor—no need to transfer files or reopen apps. Your entire workflow picks up exactly where you left off, without missing a beat.

It was exactly this vision that inspired us to create Khadas Mind.

Creating a palm-sized gadget with limitless expansion

In today’s world of 3C (Computer, Communication, Consumer Electronics), a “gadget” is no longer just a collection of hardware — it’s a complete expression of portability, intelligence, and expandability. It should be your everyday companion: light and compact, yet powerful enough to adapt to all kinds of future scenarios. With this vision in mind, we launched the Khadas Mind Portable Workstation in 2023. It breaks free from the bulky form of traditional desktops and, through its modular interface, can be combined like LEGO bricks to meet your needs across diverse usage scenarios. 

Ultra-Slim Form: With a card-like design roughly the size of an iPhone 16 Pro Max, Khadas Mind delivers high computing performance, not a stripped-down ARM-based or ultra-low-power platform like many expect from compact PCs. To us, performance is the foundation of any computer. It must handle everyday work and entertainment with ease. 

Modular Expansion: Despite its slim profile, it can be expanded like LEGO blocks to suit various scenarios. Whether it’s ports, performance, or form factor, you can mix and match different expansion modules to meet your specific needs.

Exceptional User Experience: An internal battery ensures your workflow isn't interrupted when switching environments. The premium feel of its metal chassis and precision-crafted finish adds to the experience, along with ad-free, practical management software. 

We want you to feel that spark of excitement the moment you unbox it and hold it in your hands. 

Slip a beautifully designed mini PC into your jeans pocket

A user once messaged us about their Edge2: “This isn’t just a powerful SBC—it’s a work of art.” At Khadas, product design has always been one of our most distinctive hallmarks. We adhere to a philosophy of refined yet expressive aesthetics—“Good design speaks for itself.” Khadas Mind blends modern minimalism with exceptional portability. Whether in the palm of your hand or on your desk, it stands out with quiet confidence and elegance. After meticulous “millimeter-level” refinement and multiple design iterations, our team integrated symmetrical aesthetics and unified design into every detail. Whether showcased on its own or paired with the Mind Graphics series, the Mind naturally draws the eye—an understated centerpiece in any setting. 

• Harmony: Whether used alone or paired with expansion modules, we want Khadas products to look and feel like a unified whole. This sense of integration not only enhances visual harmony but also helps minimize issues like tangled or disconnected cables that disrupt the user experience. 

  
  

• Symmetry: Without compromising functionality, we strive to achieve symmetry in our product designs. This creates a sense of balance and harmony, bringing users both aesthetic pleasure and an intuitive sense of order. 

Based on these principles, Khadas Mind adopts a sleek, card-style form factor—more like a smartphone than a traditional bulky box-shaped device. 

The main unit features a stepped top-and-bottom cover design (a floating-effect dual-chamber structure), which creates a visually slimmer and more refined appearance. Its symmetrical layout ensures an optimal visual effect no matter how it's placed. 

The entire device has only one physical button. Through variations in color and pulsing states of the breathing light, it communicates the system’s status intuitively. The beveled edges of the enclosure echo the slanted design of the button, lending Khadas Mind a refined, understated aesthetic that reflects the elegance of professional-grade equipment. 

Highly integrated, custom-molded, purpose-built — everything from scratch 

“Ideas are easy, execution is everything.” Once we had a clear vision, the real challenge was figuring out how to bring that vision to life. 

At the time, many products on the market relied on off-the-shelf components—standard motherboards, cooling solutions, and expansion ports all housed in generic molds. These limitations restricted both size and thermal performance. However, those prefabricated parts couldn’t meet our design requirements, so we decided to start from scratch. That meant redesigning the motherboard layout, PCB routing, connector placements, and thermal modules—all tailored to our vision. 

To overcome the spatial constraints of a card-style design, we adopted a more costly onboard configuration, integrating the memory directly onto the motherboard. This approach saves valuable space across all three dimensions—X, Y, and Z. The entire system follows a modular architecture, combining the core motherboard, thermal solution, battery power, and storage into compact, interlocking modules to maximize space efficiency. 

As for thermal management, conventional fans and heatsinks often lose their effectiveness in such tight enclosures. To address this, we collaborated closely with our suppliers to develop a custom thermal solution from the ground up, combining vapor chamber (VC) liquid cooling technology with a magnetic levitation fan. We also optimized the internal airflow channels, enabling the device to handle high-load operations while keeping noise levels well within an acceptable range. 

For connecting with external modules, we custom-designed the dedicated Mind Link interface to ensure seamless hot-swapping, allowing you to connect to a port expansion dock or GPU expansion module without needing to shut down the device. The SSD expansion slot also uses a magnetic latch mechanism, making insertion and removal of an SSD smoother and more intuitive. These seemingly small design choices are actually targeted solutions to common pain points found in off-the-shelf modular designs. 

The result? A “pocket PC” that's just 20mm thick and weighs under 450 grams. More importantly, it’s a powerful machine built for performance and ready to adapt across a variety of usage scenarios. 

At Khadas, we aim to bring you a truly different kind of product

Looking back on the journey from off-the-shelf “kits” to full-stack in-house development, every small innovation has carried our original intention: 

• A different kind of experience – reimagining how a product should be used by combining portability, high performance, and rich expandability into one cohesive whole. 

• No shortcuts – because only by starting from scratch can we shape the form and features we truly envision. 

• Meticulous craftsmanship – to ensure that design, cooling, performance, and portability all harmonize within the same device. 

That’s why Khadas Mind is more than just a pocket-sized workstation — it’s a carefully crafted “gadget” waiting to be explored, customized, and pushed to the limit. Today, you might use it to finish a report. Tomorrow, you might power a robot. And the day after, you could reimagine it entirely to create something brand new — all because we believe in the power of creative freedom. 

In the future, Khadas will continue to bring you more extraordinary “gadgets". It might be lighter, faster, or smarter hardware—or perhaps a brand-new accessory designed to perfectly match your needs, or even a software experience that sparks your imagination. We look forward to seeing these creations take on new meaning in your hands, igniting fresh ideas and inspiring unique innovations. 

Let’s break boundaries together and explore the unknown. And the next time you’re looking for something truly different to power your creativity, Khadas will be right here — your bold partner in playing outside the box. 

Khadas Team