Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: A brilliant all-in-one PC for home working and business

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 means business. Where the other best all-in-one PCs are all about homework, creativity and entertainment, this one’s focused on providing you with a solid, speedy platform for getting through the daily grind. That means a strong spec based on 13th generation Intel Core CPUs, a good screen and a professional look, but also effective peripherals, an integrated webcam and features aimed at making your working day that little bit easier.

It’s tempting to look at the ThinkCentre M90a as the kind of PC big corporations buy to kit out their most luxurious offices, and it comes with an intimidating price tag. Yet in many ways it’s exactly the kind of all-in-one PC that many of us working from home could (and should) be using. You might not be fussed about corporate-friendly security and fleet management features, but if you’re a smaller business or working from a home office, you’ll find this all-in-one has plenty to offer.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: What you need to know

The ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 is an all-in-one PC based on a choice of Intel Core i5, Core i7 or Core i9 processors and a 27in QHD screen. Different versions come with between 8GB and 32GB of DDR5 RAM with a 512GB SSD, while all include a wireless desktop mouse and keyboard combo and a 1080p webcam, permanently fixed to the top of the screen. Lenovo also produces versions with a dedicated NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU, but these don’t seem to be available in the UK.

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Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Price and competition

As a business-focused all-in-one, the ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 is going up against similar options like the Dell Optiplex 7410 Plus series or HP’s EliteOne 870 G9, though the former has a smaller 23in screen. This makes it a little cheaper than the ThinkCentre M90a Pro, costing around £100 less than the equivalent Core i7-13700 spec. The HP, meanwhile, is around £100 more expensive than the ThinkCentre M90a Pro for the same configuration. It might seem pricey, but the ThinkCentre is actually good value for money.

The other serious contender would be Apple’s new M3 iMac , priced at £1,399 for the entry-level model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. We’ve yet to test this version, though we would expect it to be significantly faster than the M1 iMac we reviewed in 2022 or the M2 Pro Mac mini we reviewed last year.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Design and key features

If you’ve mostly used consumer all-in-one PCs, you might be surprised how heavy and solidly built the ThinkCentre M90a Pro is. The two part stand is itself quite weighty at just over 3kg, helping keep the big screen from toppling over, and at 10.77kg in weight, this all-in-one will stay firmly planted on the desk.

The Ultra-Flex V stand doesn’t allow for pivoting or horizontal swivel, but it gives you 75-degrees of tilt and nearly 85mm of lift from the desktop, so it’s easy to find a comfortable working height. With the slim frame around the screen, the understated logo and subtle red accents, the ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 looks as smart and professional as an all-in-one can be.

All the connectivity can be found at the rear, either on the back beneath the bulge containing the core PC components or on its right-hand side. On the side sits one Thunderbolt 4/ USB Type-C port, along with an SD-card reader, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a 3.5mm audio socket. On the rear you’ll find a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a DisplayPort 1.4 output, Gigabit Ethernet and an HDMI 2.1 port that also doubles as an HDMI 1.4 input. All are easy to access, as is a four-way joystick that allows you to quickly change screen settings and brightness levels.

It’s the practicalities that make the ThinkCentre M90a Pro so quietly impressive. The stand and its tilt and lift mechanisms feel rock solid, and the stand itself doubles as a tray where you can stow your keyboard while it’s not in use, with a little extra section that could easily hold a pen (though the screen itself isn’t touch-sensitive for use with a stylus). A vertical slot running through the stand gives you basic cable management, and a removable cover on the rear gives you scope to add a second M.2 SSD, upgrade your RAM or even add a 2.5in SATA SSD.

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Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Peripherals

On too many all-in-ones, the keyboard and mouse feel like afterthoughts – cheap and cheerful extras that you’re well advised to replace as soon as you can. With the ThinkCentre M90a Pro, they feel like integral elements of the system. The keyboard uses chiclet keys rather than traditional keycaps, but they have more height and travel than your average chiclet keyboard and a really satisfying click and response as you type. The layout isn’t quite standard, with the Delete key merged into its own zone with the navigation keys, between the return key and the numeric keypad, but this is something you can quickly adapt to and it even makes sense after a while.

As for the mouse, it’s a slimline ambidextrous model with just the basic two buttons and scroll wheel, but it has a bit of weight to it and the shape turns out to be quite comfortable over prolonged use (and I say that as someone who spends most of their working hours using chunky ergonomic mice).

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Display and speakers

The 27in display isn’t spectacular, but it’s sensible and practical for the daily grind. The 1440p resolution means that text and images look crisp even at the larger screen size, and there’s plenty of room for working across multiple windows and applications. Meanwhile the matt surface makes for a less punchy image than a gloss screen, but also one that’s less prone to irritating reflections. Even working by a bright window, everything is clear and visible, helped by a respectable 328cd/m2 brightness level.

This isn’t a designer’s display. It covers 99.5% of the sRGB colour gamut and 84.8% of DCI-P3, but it’s 8-bit colour rather than 10-bit and the average Delta E is 1.68 – still great, but not quite perfect. For office work and light image or video-editing, though, it’s going to be more than fine, while some Netflix streaming after hours won’t be a problem, as you still get plenty of detail and some nice, vibrant colours.

It also helps that the audio is so good, with the dual 5W speakers dishing out a reasonably powerful, clear and meaty sound with Dolby Atmos support and some surprisingly immersive stereo effects. The built-in mic array also does a great job of capturing audio for video meetings and conference calls, which the webcam backs up with well-balanced and mostly noise-free images. Again, you have all the business basics covered.

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Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Performance

Our test model came with the mid-range Core i7 13700/16GB spec, and it’s going to be more than fast enough for most purposes. A score of 445 in our 4K media benchmarks puts it slightly ahead of any all-in-one we’ve tested so far, though only slightly in front of the M2 Pro Mac Mini , which would itself fall slightly behind the latest M3 iMac. It’s also in front of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 with its mobile Core i7 13700H CPU, not to mention the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra . These are high-performance laptops rather than desktops, but the results go to show how comparatively speedy the ThinkCentre M90a Pro is.

It’s a similar story with more demanding applications; the ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 scores 16,494 in the multi-threaded test of the Cinebench R23 rendering benchmark and 1,712 in the single-threaded test, compared to 13,979 and 1,915 for the Surface Laptop Studio 2 and 15,407 and 1,899 for the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra . While it doesn’t have the GPU horsepower required for 3D gaming or speedy, real-time rendering of 3D scenes or 4K video, it’s a bit of a powerhouse for just about anything else.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 4 review: Verdict

The ThinkCentre M90a Pro is a fairly expensive all-in-one, but if you’re looking for a fast, well-equipped and highly usable PC for work, then it’s worth the money. It’s well designed with a decent spec and built to last, with a big screen and excellent peripherals. The ThinkCentre M90a Pro is also brilliantly equipped when it comes to connectivity, audio and its webcam, and gives you a very comfortable working experience, which matters more than you might appreciate when it comes to getting through the working week.

If you spend most of that week working remotely from a spare room or dedicated office, an all-in-one like this could be a real game changer, giving you the space and comfort you need to get things done for the same price you’d pay for a high-end laptop. And if that makes sense to you, you won’t do much better than the ThinkCentre M90a Pro.