My verdict on it is becoming less and less provisional: It's just a damn good deal at about $100 from Amazon (not an affiliate link).
My original goal was "get and use a Chromebox with 8Gb of RAM, without spending $400+."
I never got there, and I've mostly given up messing with it. I did install FydeOS to a bootable USB drive, but I've barely used it, as I'm suspicious of the whole idea of a non-Google-"managed" ChromeOS fork, especially one that's "managed" from China. I may try some other things later, especially when and if ChromeOS Flex becomes available for the ATOPNUC's processor, but no biggie.
I ended up going with Lubuntu with the LXQt desktop environment versus regular Ubuntu with, I think, Gnome, which came preinstalled on the machine (that's still installed -- I went dual-boot, defaulting to Lubuntu). The main difference is that I had trouble getting regular Ubuntu to configure my desktop the way I like, while LXQt was an easy configuration. In theory, Lubuntu is lighter on resources than Ubuntu. I can't say I've really noticed a difference there in terms of speed, power consumption, etc. I just like it better.
The machine boots up fast, runs well, etc. It cost $50 less than my previous machine, a Raspberry Pi 4B with 8Gb of RAM but with an ARM processor instead of the ATOPNUC's AMD CPU (the latter meaning I can run "real" Chrome instead of Chromium as my browser, with the attendant sync capabilities, DRM handling so I can stream Netflix or whatever, etc.).
I've really had zero significant problems with the machine that I can recall, other than the initial problems caused by auditioning multiple OSes and trying to get boot orders, etc. right. The only ongoing problem I can think of is that the OS occasionally forgets my audio settings. Not on every boot, just every once in a while. When it happens, it takes about two seconds to fix from the volume/mixer control in the always-present bottom task bar.
Side note:
I've auditioned I don't know how many password managers to replace LastPass, which I no longer trust. I can't recall how many, but I found Dashlane meh/OK and Zoho Vault unsatisfactory for various reasons. Right now I'm on Nordpass. Their "free" plan is plenty for me, the only feature I dislike is having to have an app installed on the machine rather than merely using a Chrome extension, and the only problem I've had with it is that sometimes the Chrome extension doesn't want to load (but since the app is "always on" in my taskbar, I can just grab a password from there if I need to). I may try some others out later.
So, the verdict re-stated: You're not likely to get a better computer than the ATOPNUC for the price. It's not a high-end gaming PC, but it will run Windows 10 (I'm not sure about 11) or any of many Linux variants, and can handle my (and probably your) usual activities such as browsing the Web, watching videos, editing text, etc. It's quiet, it uses very little electricity (almost always less than 20 watts and sometimes less than 10), it's compact, and according to psensor the CPU remains relatively cool even under load, so I figure it will likely last some time.
The only "down side" I can see, and only for some users, is that its built-in SSD "only" stores 128Gb. So if you store a lot of data, you may want to consider an external USB drive, or a replacement internal one, or a cloud storage solution. Personally, I store very little data, and I've got my essentials on an SD card for portability, so this doesn't bother me.
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