News Lenovo Drops Tiny AMD-Based Fanless ThinkCentre Mini Desktop

[Admin]

AMD, small, passive, and ample connectivity. What's not to like?

Lenovo Drops Tiny AMD-Based Fanless ThinkCentre Mini Desktop : Read more

 

[Rdslw]

I just love how the page:
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/athlon_silver/3050u
list this athlon as:

base frequency

2,300 MHz (2.3 GHz, 2,300,000 kHz) +

that kiloherz since my earliest days in PC I remember like 4Mhz cpu's kHz is so abstract.

but that box seems like a perfectly capable netflix TV addon.

 

[spongiemaster]

but that box seems like a perfectly capable netflix TV addon.

For $330? Why would you choose this over every streaming box available which are all much cheaper and purpose built for the task? Nvidia Shield TV Pro for $200, or this for $330? I'll take the shield. For the cost, this doesn't seem to have much use as a home device. For businesses, however, there are ample use cases.

 

[Rdslw]

For $330? Why would you choose this over every streaming box available which are all much cheaper and purpose built for the task? Nvidia Shield TV Pro for $200, or this for $330? I'll take the shield. For the cost, this doesn't seem to have much use as a home device. For businesses, however, there are ample use cases.

I just noticed that shield also can stream 4k 60 fps so yeah it has no sense here. I kinda prefer linux + mouse than nvidia gui but its not a reason to double the price. (was the shield anounced ? How I missed a refresh?)
I guess I was fixated on having my own solution because nobody makes good & small stuff.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Again so close yet so far. It would have been a great net app box (pfSense/untangle) if it werent for the fact its missing a second gig ethernet

 

[F-minus]

For $330? Why would you choose this over every streaming box available which are all much cheaper and purpose built for the task? Nvidia Shield TV Pro for $200, or this for $330? I'll take the shield. For the cost, this doesn't seem to have much use as a home device. For businesses, however, there are ample use cases.

Why are you even asking that. This isn't meant to be used as a stream box, this is partially military grade, resistant to humidity, heat, shocks, dust - it's perfect for more hostile environments, not to sit below your TV. This is like asking why you would buy a rugged phone that is resistant to oil, dust, water, drops, and looks like crap, instead of a Samsung Galaxy S20, well ask the rigger guy or a coal miner why a Galaxy S20 would not survive a day, same goes for this thing.

There's also a normal M75n (not IoT) version that is equiped with 3300U 4/4 or 3500U 4/8 coming, that is more in the space you're looking at, home computing and normal office work. It is also likely going to be more expensive, then again with 4 cores 8 threads you can actually use it as a tiny workstation, for people with limited space, I'm in the market for one - and it will be the smallest Ryzen box out there, ignoring all the other Athlon or semi-custom solutions, that pale in comparison to actual mobile Ryzen chips.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/ThinkCentre-M75n/p/WMD00000407

 

[spongiemaster]

Again so close yet so far. It would have been a great net app box (pfSense/untangle) if it werent for the fact its missing a second gig ethernet

Some of the Intel models have dual ethernet.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/deskto...s/ThinkCentre-M90n-IoT/p/thinkcentre-m90n-iot

 

[spongiemaster]

Why are you even asking that.

I'm not. My post contained a quote of the one sentence in a previous post that prompted my response. The original poster even responded in agreement. Try to follow along with the rest of us.

 

[nofanneeded]

Overpriced ....

Why are you even asking that. This isn't meant to be used as a stream box, this is partially military grade, resistant to humidity, heat, shocks, dust - it's perfect for more hostile environments, not to sit below your TV. This is like asking why you would buy a rugged phone that is resistant to oil, dust, water, drops, and looks like crap, instead of a Samsung Galaxy S20, well ask the rigger guy or a coal miner why a Galaxy S20 would not survive a day, same goes for this thing.

There's also a normal M75n (not IoT) version that is equiped with 3300U 4/4 or 3500U 4/8 coming, that is more in the space you're looking at, home computing and normal office work. It is also likely going to be more expensive, then again with 4 cores 8 threads you can actually use it as a tiny workstation, for people with limited space, I'm in the market for one - and it will be the smallest Ryzen box out there, ignoring all the other Athlon or semi-custom solutions, that pale in comparison to actual mobile Ryzen chips.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/ThinkCentre-M75n/p/WMD00000407

this is not military grade , it is industrial grade ... but anyways still over priced for what it does and the hardware inside ... the tiny case they are using is some $30 cost nothing more with passive heatsink

 

[digitalgriffin]

Some of the Intel models have dual ethernet.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/deskto...s/ThinkCentre-M90n-IoT/p/thinkcentre-m90n-iot

Pentium j5005 $110
Case $50
Ram $60
Psu $45
2 nic pcie card: $80
$345 and it more than doubles the power.

Or i can get a barebones protectli for that kind of scratch and get a i3

 

[spongiemaster]

Pentium j5005 $110
Case $50
Ram $60
Psu $45
2 nic pcie card: $80
$345 and it more than doubles the power.

Or i can get a barebones protectli for that kind of scratch and get a i3

No storage? You need to add $45 for a 256GB NVME drive. The dual nic version of this only comes with a whiskey lake based i3-8145U ($458), which is not half the speed of the Pentium j5005. It's actually much faster. Also, the whole selling point of this is the compact size and robustness with no moving parts for better durability which you can't match with off the shelf parts. If you're not meeting those standards you're just building a different non-competitive product.

 

[wr3zzz]

For what it's worth, Intel's 5W TDP Y-series CPU alone costs more than this PC and can only be found in premium ultrabooks that cost a lot (owner of HP Spectre Folio, and yes Y-series has plentiful power as my main machine for work).

 

[digitalgriffin]

No storage? You need to add $45 for a 256GB NVME drive. The dual nic version of this only comes with a whiskey lake based i3-8145U ($458), which is not half the speed of the Pentium j5005. It's actually much faster. Also, the whole selling point of this is the compact size and robustness with no moving parts for better durability which you can't match with off the shelf parts. If you're not meeting those standards you're just building a different non-competitive product.

I agree with you. But their base offering is a 2 core Celery and that won't cut it for a net box doing gigabit AES encryption (VPN). It makes it quite pricey too compared to the J5005 equivalent.

It's a nice little box, but still a little pricey. Time you get into $458 range you can still build faster and more flexible for cheaper. Protectli comes to mind or any of the generic versions of that hardware on AliExpress. But for the convenience aspect, and small size, it's reasonable.

 

[King_V]

Am I correct in assuming that this is including the price of the Windows license? Maybe that's contributing to the cost?

If it had 8GB, a small SSD, and did NOT have Windows, it might've been a better version of my Micro Machine (see sig)