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
Application and Futuremark Performance
Ignoring Intel's naming shenanigans with the Core i5-3470T for a moment, it's hard to get too excited about the CPU choice in the ThinkCentre M92 Tiny when an extra ten watts or hundred dollars would get Lenovo a quad core processor. The power supply should be able to handle it without too much trouble, as there's very little else in the system it has to power, and you'll see there's at least a little thermal headroom in Lenovo's design. That said, keep in mind the M92 is roughly as small as the Logic Supply system we reviewed and smaller than the two Puget Systems machines we're comparing it against.
The PCMarks are unkind to the M92 due to its mechanical storage (the Puget Systems Echo builds both feature SSDs), and unfortunately Lenovo asks an ungainly $220 for an upgrade to a 128GB SSD. The Echo also benefits from being able to support a quad core processor, but keep in mind the Echo is bigger to boot and is powered off of a 95W external power brick instead of a 65W.
Ivy Bridge brings us strong single-threaded performance and the M92 is impressive enough there, but the instant extra cores are brought onto the field it loses a lot of traction. Still, the i5-3470T should be adequate for most tasks and certainly more than enough for kiosk duty.
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piroroadkill - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
We buy our PCs from a small company here in the UK, and they will assemble a Shuttle based machine (nice and small) with a Core i3 3.3GHz, 4GB RAM, 64GB Samsung 830, with keyboard and mouse for less than 300 quid (ex VAT).. $470 - it even comes with a 2 year warranty. A far better machine for a desktop where local storage is rarely used.Pino - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Dustin,The chassis is not rivet locked, you can open the chassis.
Just slide the top cover to front.
mfenn - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
"Skint"? "aces"? Kids these daysDemon-Xanth - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
One possible target here may be call center type locations where the person using it will always have a headset on that is connected to a phone. Thus the audio connection lacking becomes entirely a non issue. The small size makes replacing it with spares incredibly easy and can be done in seconds quickly. Much like replacing a home network switch. I wouldn't be surprised if they sold these things by the dozen.valjean - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
There should be an evaluation on whether the unit is still stable or has a tendency to tilt to one side when all the ports (USB, Video and LAN) are used since this unit is small and could be light as well.kevith - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
...it´s so close! Wireless, SSD (and if you actually can just slide the case open that presents no problem) and a better CPU, primarily graphics-wise, and it´s very close to a machine for me.Quincunx - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Which one did Ars review, because theirs seemed to pop right open after two thumbscrews and a phillips:http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/08/review-ivy-...
Of note: They also didn't compare it to the Mac Mini. The ThinkCentre brand specifically caters to enterprise. I'm pretty sure the folks asking about the absence of this comparison, don't have an enterprise IT perspective. I saw this review and thought, "Oh joy, perhaps next time I perform a desktop replacement, I can just pop the new machine into my laptop bag and be off."
BigLan - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Comparing the pictures, it looks like anand's unit doesn't even have the thumb screws that the one at Ars had. There should just be one philips head screw to remove (probably the one right next to the kensington slot on the back) and then slide the top half forward and off.poorted - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
To me, this looks like the perfect type system for yes kiosks, but also point of sale type systems.-Thermal headroom so when its shoved in a small cupboard and left on 24/7 it still keeps going.
-No need to be serviced on site, just swap out if something fails, easy enough for a retail worker to do, just unplug 2-3 cables and plug in the new one.
-Lack of audio also isn't an issue in this environment.
The idea is that it will be small, cool running, and be able to stay on for months/years at a time without (ever) needing to be serviced.
Quincunx - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Also, as of this moment, you can upgrade this to a 500GB, 7200RPM drive for zero additional dollars.