Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 2023, Ryzen 5 PRO 5650GE, 16GB, 256GB SSD, Black

The ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 scores 65.3 for business use and weighs just 0.45kg, but the 256GB SSD sits at the 14th percentile for storage. The Ryzen 5 PRO 5650GE and 16GB of RAM handle office work fine, while the gaming score of 11 out of 100 tells you everything about the integrated graphics. Shop the low end of the USD 305 to USD 800 price range and you'll get a decent deal.

The Ryzen 5 PRO 5650GE is a 6-core chip running at 3.4GHz, and it lands at the 40th percentile for CPUs in our database. That's about average for this class of machine. You won't be rendering video or compiling massive codebases quickly, but day-to-day office work feels responsive enough. The 16GB of DDR4 helps, though it's only at the 32nd percentile for RAM, which tells you most competitors are shipping 32GB or faster memory these days.

The integrated Radeon Graphics sits at the 47th percentile. It'll push a 4K display over DisplayPort or HDMI 1.4b without breaking a sweat, but don't expect any real gaming. Our gaming score for this unit is 11 out of 100, which is about as close to zero as you can get without being a literal calculator. The 256GB SSD is the real bottleneck here, sitting at the 14th percentile. Windows 11 Pro alone eats a chunk of that, and you'll be juggling files before you know it.

Against the Apple Mac mini M4, this ThinkCentre gets absolutely smoked on CPU and GPU performance. The M4 is in a different league, though it costs more and locks you into macOS. The Minisforum DeskMini UM880 Plus offers far better specs for similar money, with faster storage and more RAM headroom. The ASUS NUC 14 Pro is a closer match in form factor but typically ships with better connectivity and newer Wi-Fi. The HP OmniDesk M02-0234 and Dell Tower Desktop ECT1250 are traditional towers, so they're not direct competitors in size, but they often undercut this unit on price per gigabyte of storage. If you need the tiny footprint and Windows 11 Pro specifically, the ThinkCentre holds its own. If you can go slightly larger, you'll get more for your money elsewhere.

Pricing is all over the map. In the US, listings range from USD 305 to USD 800 across 4 vendors. That's a USD 495 spread for what appears to be the same core hardware, so shop carefully. The low end of that range is genuinely good value for a Windows 11 Pro mini PC with a 6-core Ryzen and 16GB of RAM. At USD 800, you're paying too much for a machine with a 256GB SSD and Wi-Fi 5. Canadian buyers face an even wider gap, CAD 849 to CAD 1,507 across 4 listings. The CAD 849 price is reasonable. The CAD 1,507 price is not. European listings sit between EUR 1,385 and EUR 1,470, which feels steep for these specs. If you're in the US or Canada, hunt for the low end of those ranges and you'll feel okay about the deal.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 scores 65.3 for business use and 63.2 for compact setups in our database. That puts it solidly in the middle of the pack for mini PCs, which is fine if you need a tiny Windows 11 Pro box that sips power and stays quiet. But the 256GB SSD lands at the 14th percentile for storage, and that's the number you'll feel first.

At 0.45kg, this thing is basically a paperweight with ports. You get a Ryzen 5 PRO 5650GE with 6 cores at 3.4GHz, 16GB of DDR4, and integrated Radeon Graphics. The CPU sits at the 40th percentile, RAM at the 32nd, and the GPU at the 47th. Nothing here is going to blow your hair back, but for spreadsheets, browser tabs, and remote desktop sessions, it's a competent little worker.

Skip this if you need storage space or any kind of graphics performance. The 256GB SSD at the 14th percentile will fill up fast, and the gaming score of 11 out of 100 means even casual gaming is off the table. If you're working with large files, photo or video editing, or want to run local AI models, look elsewhere. The Wi-Fi 5 support is also dated, so if you rely on fast wireless transfers, you'll want something with Wi-Fi 6 or better. And if you're seeing prices at the high end of the USD 305 to USD 800 range, walk away. You can get far more capable hardware for that money.

The ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 is a fine little office box if you find it at the right price. The 6-core Ryzen 5 PRO 5650GE and 16GB of RAM handle business tasks without drama, and the 0.45kg weight makes it trivial to mount behind a monitor or toss in a bag. But the 256GB SSD at the 14th percentile is a real limitation, and the gaming score of 11 out of 100 means this is strictly a work machine. At USD 305 or CAD 849, it's a solid buy. At the higher end of those price ranges, you're overpaying for aging specs.