This is probably the best Apple Mac Studio alternative right now: Lenovo’s ThinkCentre neo Ultra has up to 16 ports and can even power an old CRT monitor
As you might expect, Lenovo, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, announced plenty of new products at CES 2024, and without a doubt one of the most impressive releases on show was the ThinkCentre neo Ultra, Lenovo’s first with Ultra Small Form Factor desktop-equipped desktop. with powerful AI capabilities.
This new mini PC harnesses the power of a CPU, an independent NPU, and a GPU, working together to deliver optimal performance by allocating resources efficiently.
Lenovo says the ThinkCentre neo Ultra is designed for SMBs that want to take advantage of the capabilities AI promises without making significant equipment investments.
Small, but powerful
Despite its compact size, the ThinkCentre neo Ultra is certainly a top performer, with an Intel Core i9 processor on the Intel vPro Enterprise platform (Lenovo has not yet provided details on the processor options), an NVIDIA GeForce RTXTM 4060 GPU, an independent NPU card that is easy to upgrade, and up to 64 GB DDR5 RAM.
To ensure that the device stays cool even during intensive use, the ThinkCentre neo Ultra features a triple thermal fan design that draws in cool air from the top and exhausts it to the rear through the bottom.
Despite its small size, the ThinkCentre neo Ultra has many ports. On the front there are two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port and an audio jack. On the back there is one DisplayPort 1.4, three additional DisplayPort 1.4 ports (individual GPU ports), one Flex IO port (VGA/DP/HDMI/USB Type-C/Serial), another Flex IO port (VGA /DP/HDMI/ Serial/LAN), one HDMI 2.1 (TMDS), one HDMI 2.1 (discrete GPU port), two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A and two USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A, plus an RJ45 port.
It offers the newly certified Wi-Fi 7 and comes with Windows 11 Home or Pro pre-installed.
The ThinkCentre neo Ultra starts at $1,499 and is expected to be available in the US sometime in the second quarter of 2024, although there’s no word yet on European availability.
