Everything that you want to know from a guy that received one of these a couple of months ago.
Hey Gang,
I purchased the i5 with 128gb SSD but it looks like this deal is only for the 7200 RPM Sata version. Hopefully this answers some of the questions you could have.
- The MTM Model is 10HYS0NE00
- Came with Windows 10 Home Edition Preinstalled
- Came with a USB Keyboard and a USB Optical Mouse
- The 128gb SSD is SATA even though there is an available m2 port.
- m700 came with a stand to hold it upright
- m700 came with antenna for wireless card. This screws onto the post on the back of the m700
- I upgraded the RAM to 16gb. There are 2 slots available and it can hold up to 32gb (2x16gb). RAM was purchased from Crucial and worked just fine
- If you register your product with Lenovo, you can download recovery media to restore Windows 10 Home via USB if you hose something. It also tracks your warranty which is nice.
- I purchased a Displayport to HDMI cable on amazon. I can confirm that it DOES pass audio and video and both sound and video look great on a flatscreen TV via HDMI.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004C9P9TM/ - Since I’m using this as a home theater pc, I wanted a good wireless keyboard/mouse. Bought this guy on Amazon and it works great.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HR4XH5W/ - In order to easily take this with me on travel, I purchased this bag Yukon Outfitters Mission Bag. It works perfectly to safely transport this unit and it has extra storage for cords and the above mentioned portable keyboard/mouse.
Now onto the nerdy stuff. I managed to install Windows 7 on this computer. Works great now but I had to jump through a few hoops to get things installed.
- First, before anything upgrade the BIOS to the latest version. You can do this using Lenovo System Update which is preinstalled.
- In the BIOS, you have to make a couple of changes. First, under Devices > USB Legacy Support set to [Enable]. Next, under Devices > USB Virtual KBC Support set to [Enable]. Finally you may have to Enable Legacy UEFI in the BIOS if not set to [Enable] already. Without doing all of this, you won’t be able to use a keyboard and mouse when you load the Windows 7 installation from a bootable USB.
- Now the painful stuff - first, you need to obtain LEGIT copy of Windows 7 media. I owned a copy of Windows 7 Professional that I had in ISO format. Create a bootable USB drive with the Windows 7 installation files. For this, I used the Rufus utility and selected my Windows 7 ISO file. No problems there.
- Don’t try to install Windows 7 just yet because the m700 won’t allow it until you do 2 more things. First, the partitions that are preinstalled on the provided harddrive cannot be recognized by the Windows 7 installation media. I had to create a bootable USB drive using the free version of Partition Wizard. I booted to this USB drive and using the wizard I deleted the existing IBM partitions. I then created a NTFS partition and saved. The second gotcha is the the Windows 7 bootable USB that you just created doesn’t have a storage driver that can be used to recognize the drive. This means that when you load the Windows 7 setup files from USB, it will say no drive detected. To resolve this, use the WindowsImageTool which edits your just created Bootable USB Windows 7 drive by adding all of the necessary storage drivers. Both of these steps are covered in this forum post: \https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkCentre-A-E-M-S-Series/m900-Win-7-install-no-storage-drivers/td-p/3342126.
Once you handle all of these gotchas you can load Windows 7 on your m700. With upgraded RAM and the SSD, it absolutely flies.
I take this with me when I travel for work. I installed Plex with my media library on a USB thumb drive for local viewing and hooking it up to the hotel wireless works great for NetFlix. Here is one more tip - when taking this with you to a hotel for work travel, purchase a cheapo universal remote control. Some hotels try to lock down their tv’s so that you cannot access the HDMI input outside of the provided used input. I use the cheap remote to simply switch inputs and it works great!
Overall I love this thing and it’s definitely worth the money.