There can be advantages to an external brick, but I see parent's comment mostly centered on having USB-C as input.

That gives a lot more options IMHO on how to handle power for this machine, including portability, even if it's supposed to be a desktop machine.

I thought the same for the minisforum machines which would be competitive to this, they have a 19V input that really should be USB-C at this point.

I bought a portable AC battery for my Mac mini for $65. Hard agree though that it would be a lot cooler if the conversion was in the cable so I could just do dc in.

The thing is, M chips run so efficiently that even with the power loss from conversion, it’s still pulling less power than a lot of PCs.

But yeah it running on a sleek dc battery would be a lot cooler

could you share the link to the portable AC battery?

Plus you would lose a USB-C port to power

They can surely add another USB-C port, it would take the space of the current power socket so space wise it shouldn't be an issue either.