Versus other compact desktops we’ve seen of late, Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Mini 5i (starts at $509.99; $629.99 as tested) is smaller and more stylish, while also a step up in performance. This little Lenovo is a true mini PC that’s nearly the same size as the Apple Mac mini and much smaller than Windows mini-towers like the Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91 or the HP Slim Desktop. It lacks the brushed-aluminum luxury of the Mac mini, but the IdeaCentre Mini 5i adds a dash of style to its plastic chassis with a fabric top panel that will help the system blend in with modern offices or homes. Inside, our test system offers an Intel Core i5 CPU and an ample 12GB of RAM along with not one, but two, storage drives. Keeping these components cool inside such tight quarters, however, requires a cooling fan that’s constantly audible.
The Fabric of Our Computing Lives
Lenovo sells two configurations of the IdeaCentre Mini 5i. The base model costs $509.99 and features a 10th Generation (“Comet Lake”) Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive, and a 1TB hard drive. We tested the higher-end model, priced at $629.99, that serves up a 10th Gen Core i5, 12GB of memory, a 256GB SSD, and a 1TB hard drive. Both models feature Intel integrated graphics, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), and Bluetooth 5.1 wireless, running on Windows 10 Pro.
Based on the performance of the Core i3-based Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91 we tested earlier this year, the lower-end IdeaCentre Mini 5i might provide better value. Despite having fewer processing cores (four versus six) and virtual processing threads (eight versus 12), as well as less RAM, the Aspire more or less matched the IdeaCentre’s performance in PC Labs testing, thanks in large part to the Core i3’s higher clock speed. (The Acer PC’s more robust cooling likely helped, too.) Unless you plan to engage in content-creation work or media editing that could profit from our test unit’s extra CPU cores, you should get similar performance under light use from the lower-priced Lenovo model.
If you squint, you could mistake the IdeaCentre Mini 5i for a Mac mini. Roughly speaking, both are squat gray squares. At 1.6 by 7.6 by 7.2 inches (HWD), the Lenovo is slightly taller but otherwise a bit smaller than the Apple compact, which measures 1.4 by 7.7 by 7.7 inches. As mentioned, the IdeaCentre Mini 5i is significantly trimmer than a mini-tower desktop such as the Acer Aspire mentioned earlier (13.4 by 6.4 by 13.8 inches) or the HP Slim Desktop (10.6 by 3.7 by 11.9 inches).
Though you could easily stash the tiny IdeaCentre Mini 5i out of the way, you would have to do so without the aid of a VESA mount. The system does not offer compatibility with VESA mounts, but it’s spiffy enough that you probably won’t mind looking at it on your desk. The sides and bottom panel are a gray plastic with a subtle pattern of white speckles. (Lenovo calls it Terrazzo Gray.) The top panel features a woven fabric that lends a look of luxury to the system. Add four rounded corners, like the Mac mini’s, and the IdeaCentre Mini 5i boasts a modern, upscale look for a conference room, a reception area, or a home office.
Expansion capability is limited, but unlike the closed Mac, which is intended to be opened only by repair professionals, you can get inside the IdeaCentre Mini 5i without too much trouble. You pop the cloth cover off, remove three screws and a metal plate, and gain access to the memory and M.2-format SSD. (I couldn’t find a way to readily get to the system’s hard drive.) The PC uses laptop-style SO-DIMM modules. Both of the SO-DIMM slots and the lone M.2 slot are occupied in our test model, so you’ll need to replace any existing memory and the solid-state drive to expand either.
An Active Fan, and Tons of Ports
As with the hard drive, I couldn’t access the IdeaCentre’s cooling fan, but I knew it was in there because it was always spinning. Its whir was constantly audible. As soon as you power on the system, the fan starts spinning, and it never stops, even when the system is sitting idle. It revs up during heavy-lifting chores such as video or photo editing, making the whir even more evident. It never reaches the point of sounding like a jet engine, but for a system that’s likely to be placed on top of your desk and instead of below it, the fan is never out of earshot.
Thermal ventilation takes up half of the IdeaCentre Mini 5i’s bottom panel, and four rubber feet keep it from resting directly on your desk, but there’s still not enough air movement through the compact, tightly packed chassis to allow the cooling fan to cycle off.
For such a small PC, the IdeaCentre Mini 5i offers a wealth of ports. On the back panel, you’ll find both HDMI and DisplayPort connections, four USB 3.2 Type-A ports, an Ethernet jack, and the power-in port. The only missing item you might need is a flash-memory-card slot.
On the front panel you’ll spot another USB-A 3.2 port, a USB-C 3.2 port, and a headphone jack.
It’s BYOKB and BYOM with this Core i5-10400T system: You’ll find nothing but the computer and AC adapter in the box, and will need to provide your own keyboard and mouse.
Testing the IdeaCentre Mini 5i: Some Mighty Mini PC Performance
Our Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5i test system is based on Intel’s Core i5-10400T, a multithreaded six-core CPU with a base clock speed of 2.0GHz and max turbo frequency of 3.6GHz. Unlike many mini PCs, the IdeaCentre Mini 5i uses a desktop-class processor rather than a lesser-powered laptop chip, though this is a 35-watt T-series desktop chip (designed for thermally confined PCs just like this), versus a full-fat Core i5-10400 rated for a 65-watt TDP. Also, the T-series chip can’t be overclocked, but the thermal solution and size of this PC makes that prospect unrealistic, anyway. (See more about how we test desktops.)
For our performance charts, we compared the IdeaCentre Mini 5i to other budget mini and mini-tower PCs. The Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91 also features a desktop CPU in the shape of the Intel Core i3-10100, while the other two Windows PCs here—the HP Slim Desktop S01-aF0020 and Lenovo IdeaCentre 3—use low-power AMD Athlon mobile chips. Meanwhile, the Mac mini features Apple’s new M1 processor, also found in the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and upcoming 24-inch 2021 iMac. We included the Mac mini even though at $699 it’s the priciest of the bunch and it doesn’t show up in every benchmark chart below. (It’s incompatible with our Windows-based tests.)
Productivity, Storage, and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
In PCMark 10, the IdeaCentre Mini 5i easily outpaced the HP Slim Desktop and Lenovo IdeaCentre 3, the two systems that rely on Athlon mobile CPUs. The Acer was able to edge the Mini 5i despite using a quad-core Core i3 rather than six-core Core i5—as mentioned, the former has higher base and turbo clock speeds, and it draws 65 watts to the Core i5’s 35 watts.
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
The IdeaCentre Mini 5i put its six cores and 12 processing threads to good use, topping the other Windows systems in this CPU test. The Mac mini scored higher still, showing the power of Apple’s new M1 chip (and this with a non-M1-native version of Cinebench).
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing trial, another tough, threaded workout that’s highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open-source Blender demo movie Tears of SteelTears of Steel) to a 1080p MP4 file. It’s a timed test, and lower results are better.
The IdeaCentre Mini 5i took top honors here, edging the Acer and even outpacing the Apple. (Again, though, this is a non-M1-native version of the test software.)
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image, timing each operation and adding up the total. As with Handbrake, lower times are better here. The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters. So systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may see a boost.
Raw clock speed won out in our Photoshop test; the Acer Aspire small tower finished the job 20 seconds sooner than the Mini 5i, with the Mac mini finishing between the two.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
The Aspire TC-895-UA91 and IdeaCentre Mini 5i posted nearly identical results here, which isn’t surprising since they utilize the same Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics. While both systems offer a leg up on the AMD-based mini PCs, neither is well-suited for 3D graphics or gaming.
Too Stylish to Just Stash Away
The Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5i is a fetching, feature-packed mini PC, but if you’re not wedded to the size, you can find better value with the Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91. While not nearly as space-saving or stylish, the Aspire provides roughly the same performance at a lower price. And as stylish as the cloth-topped IdeaCentre is, you may not want to give it a prominent spot on your desk because of the constant whir of its cooling fan. (And if you’d put your PC under your desk and out of earshot, anyway, you almost assuredly have room for a mini-tower.)
Given that a mini desktop is an unlikely choice as a primary PC for day-to-day heavy lifting, the Mini 5i might be better off sacrificing some performance for better acoustics by ditching the desktop CPU for a more efficient mobile processor. If it were quieter, the IdeaCentre would be an excellent choice as a living-room PC or for conference rooms and reception areas. It’s far too cute and modern to end up simply tucked away.
