Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Desktop

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Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Desktop
Price: $374.99
Shipping Options:: $5 Standard
Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Monday, Feb 06 to Tuesday, Feb 07) + transit
Condition: New

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We use these at my day job. They are pretty good, but one little issue: The video is only via Display Port, and if you choose the one with the silver border (there are three) you can expect your display to go blank at random times. You have to reboot the computer to get your video back.
Using either of the other two seems to avoid this issue. We haven’t hooked up three monitors to one yet so no clue as to what it would do.

More from Notebook Check

no speaker jack ? i’ll pass

[MOD: There’s a headphone jack on the front & back according to the specs]

Not concerned about the lack of an audio jack (I assume audio will be carried over the DisplayPort).

Personally would like to see a couple of NICs…would make a fine firewall. (USB adapters are cheap though)

There is a 1/8"/3.5mm headphone jack on both the front and the back, according to the pictures, if you’re looking for an analog speaker output. The DisplayPort video connection(s) should carry digital audio, as Mavherzog indicates.

Pretty pricey for a firewall! Especially when a pi can do the job just as well for $35

I seriously ask: is this free of malware that sends data to China? Lenovo has a track record of doing this.

Example article [site has no affiliation with me]: Lenovo Caught (3rd Time) Pre-Installing Spyware on its Laptops

Example search: Google

Update edit: Q put another way… Is Linux is installable here? Would it be free of any Bios vulnerabilities?

I shrubbed the SSD as soon as I got it ( no, not with a cloth ) and reinstalled W10, but professional instead of home.

Put the OS on the m.2 while at it. Actually had a friend do it as I have no access to it until September.

So no chinese spy- nor bloatware.

Also did put OO on it to prevent/minimize the spyware by MS.

Sorry but what is OO?

It’s Open Office. It’s a free office suite, similar to Microsoft Office. It’s not quite as feature packed as MS Office, but it’s good enough for many people. https://www.openoffice.org/

What he said, also see Libre Office.

OK, so now there’s no (or at least there’s less) CHINESE spy/bloat -ware… ;->

$395.10 straight from Lenovo. Has a spinning drive but 10 Pro not Home. I don’t see the savings from Woot.

Linky

[MOD: Different configuration. No SSD. See adamsich’s post below.]

That one is a 1 yr warranty, no ssd and has a Pentium CPU. It’s $599.10 configured similarly over there with same CPU, SSD and 3 yr warranty.

Hey W00t, throw me a bag of crap for your free promotion! :slight_smile:

These are great if you want to make your own “all in one”…

Buy a 27" Hi HI Def monitor…(Samsung has a model with VESA mount on the back)

Slap the unit on the VESA mount on the back and configure it as quasi high end desktop…

$370 + $320 + extras ($140) =$800ish for a good $1200 unit from a manufacturer…

And a lot less expensive than an IMAC…

So maybe not quite as good…But 33% less…

Built an I7 Intel NUC the same way but bought every component myself (SSD, 16 GIG memory SODIMM’s, OS, Wireless Keyboard/Mouse) when they came up cheap over a few months…

In my case the video has to be 4K…

So this is not a bad deal for that type of an application given that the included memory, OS, and SSD is worth $150…

Everything that you want to know from a guy that received one of these a couple of weeks ago.

Hey Gang,

I purchased the i5 with 128gb SSD a fw weeks ago. Hopefully this answers some of the questions you may 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: [url\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!

I hope that this answers some of the outstanding questions.

Mods, jasonking0351 deserves 2 or 3 quality points for that excellent real-world evaluation/review/tech tips post.

Way more useful info than the typical “here’s a link to the product page” or re-wording of the bullet points already listed on the Woot product description.

Question, How is this at handling a program such as Photoshop?