# Lenovo ThinkCentre

20 Hacker News commenters recommended Lenovo ThinkCentre and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Cheap used mini PCs that run home servers, NAS, and routers on low power. Critics note quality varies between machines.

## Why people recommend it

- Cheap, especially second-hand value (8 comments): "Bought a ThinkCentre M910q with an internal SSD and 16 GB of RAM for €200 a couple years ago... Right now I got it chugging along" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48831629)) "Second hand SFF office PCs are super good for this. Machines like Lenovo Thinkcentre or Dell Optiplex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229134)) "older ThinkCentre Tiny series, or even base brand new M4 Mac Minis for that kind of money" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47083462))
- Runs home server workloads (5 comments): "The little Lenovo ThinkCentre's being used seem to chug along without crashing on driver issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49719937)) "I've been running it on a stand alone Lenovo Thinkcentre running inside docker." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184760)) "I route my home 10G internet on a ThinkCentre Tiny with a 2018 Core i3-8100T." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977371))
- Low power draw and quiet (3 comments): "They run at around 10watts, and plenty of compute for what i need." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493905)) "it idles at 14W, routing 10gbit full bore, 24W" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229196)) "they are so low profile and quiet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48831839))
- Upgradable with cooling and storage (2 comments): "with the benefit of it actually coming with the cooling and storage it needs to run and is upgradable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46121440)) "M910q tiny with Kaby Lake Core i5-7500 t , 32GB. Whoosh! Zoom! Motion blur!1!!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47242360))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Mac mini](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mac-mini.md): 390 recommend
- [NVIDIA DGX Spark](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-dgx-spark.md): 170 recommend
- [AMD Strix Halo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amd-strix-halo.md): 130 recommend
- [Framework Desktop](https://hackerapproved.com/p/framework-desktop.md): 93 recommend
- [Intel NUC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/intel-nuc.md): 42 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lenovo+ThinkCentre+M910q+Tiny+desktop&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/?cid=flash_redirect_2p3o1i)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Lenovo ThinkCentre", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lenovo-thinkcentre/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).