Lenovo ThinkCentre M92 Tiny System Review: Pint-Sized Power
by Dustin Sklavos on August 17, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Lenovo
- Mini ITX
- Ivy Bridge
- Enterprise
Build, Noise, Heat, and Power Consumption
I'll say this for Lenovo: whatever my complaints about the ThinkCentre M92 Tiny's default configuration (especially in regards to price), the chassis itself is well built. Lenovo has a pretty smart flow-through design that pulls in air through the front and exhausts it out of the back, and even under load the M92 Tiny is below 30dB. It also benefits from the USB 3.0 support integrated into Intel's 7 series chipsets.
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On the other hand, the port selection on the back of the M92 Tiny may be a matter of some contention depending on your needs. I don't think anyone will complain about the additional two USB 3.0 ports on the back, but the lack of audio ports is unusual, and I personally feel like it may still be too soon to rely on DisplayPort as our sole digital output. In a perfect world we'd have a DVI port there, or maybe HDMI, but DVI ports are pretty big and I'm not sure exactly how Lenovo would've fit it in (above the VGA port maybe?). Thankfully Lenovo ships a DisplayPort-to-DVI dongle with the M92 Tiny.
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However you feel about the choice of ports for the M92 Tiny, the cooling system is aces given how small the whole thing is.
The CPU runs a little toasty, but Ivy Bridge is prone to running hot to begin with. Given the way other vendors seem to be content to toe the line in regards to running Ivy's thermals right up to spec, I think you could reasonably argue Lenovo might have included an option for a 45-watt i5-3570T.
Power consumption is as you'd expect, pretty much as good as it gets short of going down to Atom. Under load the M92 Tiny isn't even stretching the limits of its 65W power supply, since these measurements were taken at the wall. At this point it's worth mentioning how remarkable it is that we're able to get this much performance out of this little power. It's true the i7-2600S in the Puget Systems Echo posts notable leads on Lenovo's system when threading comes into play, but it requires more than twice as much power to produce at most a 50% lead.
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NCM - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
Dustin Sklavos writes: "...it's for enterprise and kiosk usage. Those last two markets are places nobody in their right mind is going to buy a Mac for."Hmmm. I'd suggest that "nobody in their right mind" should make such absolute statements.
Mac Minis have been used in kiosk systems since shortly after the product was first introduced. At that time the Mini was pretty much a unique design, one whose compact size lent itself to that kind of use.
My wife's company has built interactive trade show displays for their enterprise customers that are designed to be powered by a Mac Mini, and I can't imagine that these are at all unique.
While you can of course run Windows on Mac hardware (we have several such setups for various purposes), I'd need to be shown a very good reason to choose a Mac for dedicated Windows use. Swimming upstream tends to get tiring and unproductive. On the other hand a Mini lends itself very nicely to something like an HTML based interactive display system, or of course native Mac programs.
As far as price comparisons between the Lenovo and a Mac Mini go, we shouldn't forget that the latter includes Bluetooth and WiFi, although the current version has dropped the internal optical drive. However for the specialized applications and enterprise market for which the Lenovo is intended I doubt that any of that matters one way or the other. Enterprise customers don't think about a few hundred bucks either way unless they're buying bulk quantities of something.
Sbijman - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Err. not really. A Mac Mini with 4 GB RAM, 3 yr warranty and a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter costs $827,-Besides that, the rivets aren't much of a problem in an enterprise environment where you probably have a couple of units on the shelve in case one breaks. In that case, you just swap the computers and call Lenovo to come and fix it. If it's out of warranty, it's not worth my time to repair it myself.
Even the bloatware doesn't matter, because the first thing I'd do when I'd get a shipment of these is simply add some drivers to the deployment system and re-image the lot. I'd probably do that anyway, with or without bloatware.
colinstu - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Wrong.$899 for a Mac Mini that still doesn't have a processor as fast as the Lenovo for only $639. (2.7GHz vs 2.9), and the Lenovo is 3rd Gen Intel... not sure if the mac is 2nd or 3rd.
Both have 4GB of ram, 5400rpm 500gb hard drive, no keyboard or mouse. Mini has no optical drive, Lenovo has a CD/DVD-rom drive. Not to mention the Lenovo is easier to open and service... something important for an IT staff.
sphigel - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
I just bought a Mac Mini for a classroom environment and to my dismay it doesn't even come with a slot for a kensington lock anymore. I had to pay $60 for a lockable cage to put it in. It seemed like an odd thing to leave out. Also, a comparable Mac Mini with AppleCare (the lenovo comes with 3 yr warranty) is $798. So it doesn't cost less or do more.ender8282 - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Does more? The $599 mac mini doesn't come with an optical drive, and only comes with 2GB of ram. I would argue that its less of a machine, and costs less. Add an super drive, and an extra 2GB or ram and its close cost and feature wise. If you are a mac user its probably a better choice. If you are an Windows user its still missing, well, Windows.mrsmegz - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
I mean these things are laptops w/o Keyboards, Touchpads, or Displays. and just have to be fit into a square box w/o moving hinges or anything. Why is it they cost so much more than a similarly equipped laptop?DanNeely - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Volume is a big park of it. Bottom grade laptops sell in much larger numbers winning economies of scale.Also in this case Lenovo includes a 3 year warranty. That covers a large portion of the price gap with an entry level laptop.
Conficio - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
You can upgrade to a 7,200 RPM disk for $0 and eschew the keyboard and mouse for $20, but not the optical drive (only downgrade to a DVD reader).I think for the money you can get cheaper AllInOne machines for thin client or Kiosk duty. Only if you need a really large monitor for Kiosk duty this makes sense.
rkhpedersen - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Why would I get this over a Mac Mini, which by the way is remarkable absent from the comparison?Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
As I mentioned to a previous poster, this serves different markets than the Mac Mini does. The Mac Mini is for Apple users; PC and enterprise need not apply.