Ask Paul: July 23 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Once again, let’s kick off the weekend a bit early with another great set of Windows questions.
Intel NUC
bschnatt asks:

I'm thinking of buying a NUC for the first time. They seem overpriced to me. Have you had fewer / same / more problems with them compared to your desktops over the years? Are there any off-brands (non-Intel) that you can recommend?

I’ve owned three Intel NUCs and I love them. My favorite NUC, the NUC 10, was destroyed by a lightning strike in August 2020, unfortunately, and I was going to replace it with a newer-generation NUC earlier this year, but HP sent me a small form factor (SFF) workstation to test, so I’ve been using that instead for now. But I will definitely be buying another NUC for myself. I can’t recommend them enough.

Part of the appeal of a NUC is that it’s basically an appliance. Yes, you can make upgrades, and not just RAM and SSD: I added a replacement lid to my first NUC, which I still have, that added two more USB ports, for example. But it’s really just a plug-and-go thing, and since I have no need of expansion cards or whatever, it’s a nice minimalist set-up.

As for issues, I’ve only had one, really, and only with one NUC: I switched back to my second NUC, which I think of as a NUC 8, after losing the NUC 10, and was reminded of a long-standing issue that never went away: It won’t go to sleep, no matter what I do. But that’s the only issue I’ve ever had, I believe. The NUC 10 was just about perfect. I’d still be using it now if I could be.

Was I buying a new NUC right now, I’d probably get an Intel NUC Pro Kit with a Core i5 processor and then either reutilize RAM and storage (16 GB/256 GB) I already have or buy that separately if needed. (I saved the RAM and M.2 SSD from the NUC 10 just in case they weren’t fried.) That kit is about $600, which seems reasonable to me.
Alternative eBook readers
bschnatt also asks:

Do you have experience with eBook readers NOT called Kindle? I've thought about getting a Nook (mainly for the Google Play compatibility), but one thing I like about my (now ancient) Kindle is that I never have to re-enter my credentials if I go a span of time without using a given app, unlike on my Android phones. I find that REALLY irritating! Thoughts?

I did own one Nook, but that was several years ago. And I’ve owned many, many Kindles, from the very first version on. But I don’t use an eReader now because there’s no one device that works with everything. Even a Kindle can’t display all of the content that Amazon provides through the Kindle Store. So I long ago switched to an iPad for reading: It supports everything, from Kindle to Nook to Google Play Books to whatever.

The only way I’d even consider another Kindle would be if it supported color … and all of the content. But using an iPad eliminates what, to me, is a redundant and necessary device (an eReader), which is just another thing to manage, charg...