Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) review: Giving the Mac Mini a run for its money

It might be true that desktop towers like the XPS Desktop 8960 offer plenty of power with the latest GPUs under the hood, but what if you just want a sleek, compact desktop PC for web browsing and casual computing? Usually, I’d suggest a pre-built Intel NUC for these situations, but with the news that Intel will no longer be making its own NUC products, it’s better to consider something else. The latest Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini is what you’d want to buy instead.

While it’s still using a laptop-class CPU and not a desktop CPU, it still packs plenty of power. And it looks pretty darn beautiful, too. While it’s not going to be a video editing or photo editing machine like a Mac Mini, it sure does try to come close to it. It even outdoes the Mac since it is more upgradeable. I only had one issue with it, and it’s the cooling and fan noise, but otherwise, this is a really great desktop PC that you seriously should consider if you want the perfect desktop companion.

 

Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8)

Best mini desktop PC

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini is a great compact desktop PC. It uses laptop-class 13th-generation Intel H-series CPUs, but it’s still plenty fast for everyday web browsing and general computing. It also looks pretty sleek and comes with a vertical stand

Brand

Lenovo

Storage

Up to 1TB SSD

CPU

13th-generation Intel Core i5-13500H or i7-13700H

Memory

Up to 16GB DDR4 RAM

Operating System

Windows 11 Home

Ports

Rear: 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-A 2.0, 2x USB-A 3.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Thunderbolt 4,/ Front: 1x USB-C 3.2, 1x USB-A 2.0, 1x headphone jack

Graphics

Intel Iris Xe

Dimensions

1.53×7.68×7.52 inches (39x195x191mm)

Weight

3.99 pounds (1.81kg)

Pros

• Speedy 13th-generation Intel H-series CPU
• Upgradable RAM and SSD
• Comes with a stand
• Sleek design similar to Mac Mini

Cons

• Runs a bit hot
• No keyboard/mouse included

Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8): Pricing and availability

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) is now up for sale at Lenovo.com and Best Buy. Pricing on Lenovo.com starts at $649, but Lenovo doesn’t offer the specific variant I have on its website. The unit I have is sold at Best Buy for $850. It comes configured with the 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. If your budget is smaller, you also can find a cheaper variant at Best Buy for $629 with a slower 13th-generation Intel Core i5-13500H CPU, 8GB RAM, and 256GB of storage. No accessories like a keyboard or mouse are included in this pricing.

Case, design, and connectivity

Like a Mac Mini, but better

At first glance, you might think that the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini is a Mac Mini, and that’s because it almost is. It’s another flat-square-shaped desktop PC with an aluminum frame. But, there are a few differences in this design that help make Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Mini look even better than Apple’s own compact desktop.

The first of those is the side cover. Unlike the Mac Mini, the IdeaCentre Mini has a plastic top cover that you can remove if you want to upgrade the device (more on that later). The cover has a nice patterned, faux fiberglass-like effect that brings out the Cloud Grey finish a bit more. This all makes the IdeaCentre look fancy and stylish, which helps it fit in with any desk setup.

The IdeaCentre Mini also comes with a vertical stand, which is another thing you don’t get with a Mac Mini. Though the bottom of the device already has feet that let it stand up (and ventilate properly), the stand lets you elevate it up next to a monitor when you want it to sit horizontally. It allows you the freedom to set it up however you want.

It’s also quite small, coming in at only 7.68 inches long and 1.53 inches thick. This really makes it quite compact, though not as small as something like a ThinkCentre, an HP Elite Mini, or, of course, a Mac Mini, which is 7.75 inches long and 1.41 inches thick. However, the differences are minimal, and it should still fit wherever you want to put it. It also weighs 3.99 pounds, which isn’t quite as heavy as a desktop tower might be. It’s really easy to travel with, should you have to.

Note that just like a Mac Mini and other mini PCs, this desktop PC has a power supply unit (PSU) integrated into the inside, so you don’t need to worry about having a large power brick on your desk. You can just use a standard A/C connector. Lenovo isn’t using a proprietary connector, as it does on the ThinkCentre units.

Unlike the Mac Mini, where everything is soldered, you can upgrade many of the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini’s components. And once you have a long enough screwdriver (which I learned about through personal experience), it’s quite easy to do so. Just release the front cover by pressing a button on the back of the chassis, remove the four Phillips head screws, and then remove the bottom.

Lift the fan to find the RAM on the right side and pull a latch to slide the PSU off to see the SSD on the left. I always appreciate the customization of compact PCs like this. Lenovo could have taken the Apple route and forced you to buy a model with the SSD and RAM that you want (you can replace other components, but it’s not recommended), but it didn’t. Instead, it puts you in control.

Ports

Great connectivity

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) sports a lot of great ports. You won’t need to think about dongles or docking stations here, even for connecting to extra monitors. On the back, there’s an Ethernet jack, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a USB-A 2.0 port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 1.4. You can use DisplayPort and Thunderbolt or HDMI to connect to multiple monitors. You even can get extra bandwidth and support for external GPUs thanks to Thunderbolt.

The front, meanwhile, has perfectly placed ports for plugging in a keyboard or mouse and charging your phone. You’ll find a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, along with a headphone and microphone combo. Apple’s Mac Mini has no ports on the front of the device, so this is another area where Lenovo’s PC wins out.

Performance

Perfect for Intel’s 13th-generation H-series mobile CPUs

Inside our Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini review unit was a 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, along with 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM. Again, this is a mobile CPU you might see in some of the best laptops, including some gaming laptops. It’s the same CPU that I tested in the MSI Prestige 14 Evo. It’s plenty fast for general productivity. I had no issues getting through my everyday workflow, which consists of browsing the web in Edge and using social media apps like Telegram. Even running the Windows Subsystem for Android and Linux virtual machines went smoothly. The only problem might be fan noise, which can get quite loud. The side of the system also gets warm, too, but never too hot to the touch.

Photo editing also went fast, with a set of about 30 images loading up fairly quickly and saving bulk edits in just a few seconds without slowdown. Gaming, however, isn’t its strong suit, and titles like GTA: V struggled to keep up in 4K resolution but fared better at 1080p and on medium settings. This is due to Intel’s integrated Iris Xe graphics, which aren’t designed to handle heavy games.

There’s a reason there’s a lot of power here for productivity. This is a 28W 14-core hybrid CPU with six performance cores, and eight efficiency cores, running at 5.0 GHZ when turbo-boosted. But let’s compare it to the base Mac Mini, which has eight CPU cores (four performance, four efficiency) and 10 GPU cores, for 18 cores total. Check out the performance in the chart below.

As you can tell, The IdeaCentre Mini puts up some good numbers in PCMark 10 testing, in line with what you’d get on a laptop like the MSI Prestige 14 Evo or Yoga 9i. These 6,000-level numbers indicate good performance for web browsing, which I already mentioned was superb, even when running 10+ tabs in Chrome into the mix. Of course, the Mac Mini does not run PCMark, so a comparison in Geekbench will be needed instead. As for the performance in Geekbench, you can see that the IdeaCentre Mini is on par with the Mac Mini’s results, even when it comes to multicore scoring. Again, showing that for everyday tasks involving general productivity, both machines or even a laptop with a P-series Intel CPU should be pretty decent enough.

The 13.000 scores in Cinebench show this system is pretty powerful, even outclassing the Mac Mini M2. This backs my experience with Photoshop, where opening all those photos at once and bulk applying effects and other filters didn’t slow down the system.

Of course, this only tests the CPU power, but when you account for a Mac Mini’s GPU cores (as we’ve seen in our review of the MacBook Pro M2), you get different real-world results, including great video editing performance since the silicon is optimized for Final Cut Pro, with export times of under three minutes when handling a four-minute long 8K video. I tried this same task on the IdeaCentre Mini in Adobe Premiere Pro, and it didn’t fair too well. It wasn’t nearly as fast, and the system was unresponsive a few times. Intel’s Iris Xe graphics can only do so much.

Should you buy the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8)?

You should buy the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) if:

• You want a minimalist-looking mini desktop PC
• You want an upgradable mini PC
• You need a mini PC with a lot of ports

You shouldn’t buy the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) if:

• You’re a gamer
• Need a lot of power for video editing

Priced under $1,000, the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8) is an excellent desktop PC. It’s hard to complain about it, especially since it features Intel’s second most powerful mobile processor (the H-series). This desktop is also upgradable, which means you can worry less about running out of storage or needing more RAM. And, it performs smoothly, as long as you’re not planning on gaming or running intensive tasks. It gives the Mac Mini a run for the money, at least for everyday use, and it’ll sit nicely on your desk if you prefer a desktop PC that runs Windows and not MacOS.

 

Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini (Gen 8)

Best mini desktop PC

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini is a great compact desktop PC. It uses laptop-class 13th-generation Intel H-series CPUs, but it’s still plenty fast for everyday web browsing and general computing. It also looks pretty sleek and comes with a vertical stand