0-20k Has anyone bought Mini PC from Amazon?

Black_Hawk said:
Hello Folks,

I was wondering has anyone here bought Refurbished mini PC's like Lenovo Thinkcenters, HP EliteDesk from Amazon India? If yes, then how well have they worked and held up for simple computing tasks...please share your experience.

For example, these are the mini-PCs I'm referring to:

(Refurbished) HP EliteDesk 800 G4

(Refurbished) Lenovo Thinkcentre M710q Desktop Computer Mini PC
Click to expand...
I was eyeing m710q... But this doesn't have HDMI port and people say they don't recieved what mentioned, instead of built in wifi with antena they recieved with cheap dongle
 
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CasualGamer91 said:
I was eyeing m710q... But this doesn't have HDMI port and people say they don't recieved what mentioned, instead of built in wifi with antena they recieved with cheap dongle
Click to expand...

Even I'm eyeing this for a while now. I'll just have to use a DP to HDMI adapter and since I'll be connecting the unit with via LAN cable (to my TP-Link switch at home) think it'll do the job.
 
You're better off buying them locally or through someone on techenclave maybe. They hold up pretty good, you need a light desktop environment for the ones that are underpowered.
 
Black_Hawk said:
Even I'm eyeing this for a while now. I'll just have to use a DP to HDMI adapter and since I'll be connecting the unit with via LAN cable (to my TP-Link switch at home) think it'll do the job.
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Your electricity bill will be monthly +200rs with this one maybe.. 6100t is 30watt tdp and idles at 9watt and avg workload 15-20watt.. this is the reason stopping me to buy this.. my tplink does everything I want, has wireguard 200mbps throughput with openwrt, suck on openvpn, but wireguard is better.
Now i am thinking to go with intel n100 mini pc which has tdp of 6watt only.. adding ram and ssd another 4watt on total 10-15 watt on max load 5-10watt on avg, will save you bill in long term despite having more performance
 
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I bought one (Lenovo i5 8th Gen, 16GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB SSD) for around 12/12.5k. It was supposed to come with an external Wifi dongle, but turns out the model I got had in-built wifi. Seemed to work fine in my testing and then has been on a shelf since months :)
 
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I got a Lenovo M900 tiny from Amazon for my homelab. It has been running 24x7 for close to 2 years at this point.

I did not really use it for day-to-day computing much, but did install Windows on it just to test once. It was pretty smooth overall, and given the ones you are going for are much newer I think they would work fine.
 
I bought one by Skullsaints for 17k. Working fine from last 2 years without any issues. They have multiple models for different use cases. I use it as home server so its running 24x7 from 2 years.
 
Black_Hawk said:
Hello Folks,

I was wondering has anyone here bought Refurbished mini PC's like Lenovo Thinkcenters, HP EliteDesk from Amazon India? If yes, then how well have they worked and held up for simple computing tasks...please share your experience.

For example, these are the mini-PCs I'm referring to:

(Refurbished) HP EliteDesk 800 G4

(Refurbished) Lenovo Thinkcentre M710q Desktop Computer Mini PC
Click to expand...
Check this from SkullSaints Bangalore: https://www.electroniksindia.com/pr...port-large-cooling-fan?variant=45314569470206
 
A couple of things I just remembered about the mini PC I purchased from Amazon that I missed above, JFYI:
Here's the link to the one I bought: https://amzn.in/d/3wkfewA

1. For the 1st unit I got, it was running a very old BIOS version. I tried doing a BIOS update from the official tools on the Lenovo website for the M900 tiny, but that ended up bricking the system. I saw various other reports online of this being the case for older machines with certain BIOS versions. Thankfully Amazon customer support was helpful in this case and I was able to get it replaced within the replacement window.

2. During normal operation the fan for this machine was audible (which was not the case for a different Dell mini PC I was running alongside this one, although that one has a much beefier CPU). I considered it to be different fan curve profiles bw the two machines and ignored it. A while later, I was running a relatively light load and noticed that the CPU temps were a bit high. After opening up the machine to clean things, I discovered that it had no thermal paste applied to the CPU! After applying thermal paste the temps were much better and also fan also became quiet. I had avoided opening the system earlier as it was covered under a 6 month warranty from the seller.

So your luck might vary with the seller's QC on these refurb machines.
 
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bluefog68 said:
A couple of things I just remembered about the mini PC I purchased from Amazon that I missed above, JFYI:
Here's the link to the one I bought: https://amzn.in/d/3wkfewA

1. For the 1st unit I got, it was running a very old BIOS version. I tried doing a BIOS update from the official tools on the Lenovo website for the M900 tiny, but that ended up bricking the system. I saw various other reports online of this being the case for older machines with certain BIOS versions. Thankfully Amazon customer support was helpful in this case and I was able to get it replaced within the replacement window.

2. During normal operation the fan for this machine was audible (which was not the case for a different Dell mini PC I was running alongside this one, although that one has a much beefier CPU). I considered it to be different fan curve profiles bw the two machines and ignored it. A while later, I was running a relatively light load and noticed that the CPU temps were a bit high. After opening up the machine to clean things, I discovered that it had no thermal paste applied to the CPU! After applying thermal paste the temps were much better and also fan also became quiet. I had avoided opening the system earlier as it was covered under a 6 month warranty from the seller.

So your luck might vary with the seller's QC on these refurb machines.
Click to expand...

Thank-you for sharing your experience.

Can you kindly mention the seller's name in your case from Amazon?
 
Does anyone have experience with seller “New jaisa”. Have seen competitive rates from them and also good reviews. They also have a website and seem to provide 1 year warranty
 
inc0d3r said:
Does anyone have experience with seller “New jaisa”. Have seen competitive rates from them and also good reviews. They also have a website and seem to provide 1 year warranty
Click to expand...
Don't buy it from them. I had purchased an HP EliteDesk 800 Mini and they sent me a unit with the front panel broken. It had completely come apart. Was a pain getting refund from Amazon because it was replacement only. After multiple calls and emails spanning over 3 weeks, I was finally able to get a refund.
 
I wouldn't recommend buying it off Amazon, to be honest. The biggest issue is you have no control over what you'll get, and then getting a refund would be a big PITA. If you have any offline stores around you, pick one out of the lot after examining in person, or buy one from someone here on TE. @aasimenator keeps stocks of mini PCs.
 
@kewlboy9 thanks but I don't do generic items, I only sell unique products that have a specific use case, e.g., the P330. I do have HP 800 G5 but that as well has dual NVME slot.

M710q etc. are sold in the lots in the market and these vendors purchase them in the hundreds and get super cheap pricing on them, plus they will sell you cheapo SSDs and duplicate RAM which brings their costs down even more, and you cannot compete with them on price, every day I get at least 5-10 people asking me why I am selling an 8th/9th gen for x price when the same is sold on Amazon for y.

There is also a grading system, but that would be a very long and off-topic to discuss here, in short, these online sellers will be selling you C / D grade systems while charging you A-grade pricing.
e.g., the P330 that I sell is an A-grade item (no to some minor scratches, non-repaired) whereas a C/D grade would be a major repair, dent or deep scratches. the A-grade item is sold for Rs. 6000 vs a C or D grade which is sold for close to Rs. 3500.

I don't do any of this, everything I sell is 100% OG and OEM, if it's not, it is returned to the vendor. The price difference between cheap RAM and good RAM is pretty big, e.g., a 16GB DDR4 duplicate RAM would be less than Rs.1200 buck but an OEM pulled-out RAM would be Rs. 2000/-

A normal person will not be able to differentiate whether the RAM is original or a copy, they even print the same label as the original and stick it on the duplicate RAM offering a 3/5 year warranty. The same goes for SSDs.
The USB WiFi Dongle they sell you for is also very cheap around Rs. 250 whereas the internal antenna alone for a Tiny PC is Rs. 500. not including the costs of the wire and the card itself.

But general consumers will never understand such a comparison so it is best to say
Thanks Thank You GIF by BLKBOK
 
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I can vouch for @aasimenator. I purchased a M920X from him last year and it is running flawlessly. I am using it run few services and also temporarily to train ML models 24/7 till I build my PC. Peak temperatures are only 71-72 degrees with not much fan noise. This thing is running 8700T with 32Gigs of RAM.
 
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