As always with OEM PCs, the devil is in the details

[mikeymikec]

Technically not a laptop but an AIO PC (there doesn't seem to be a forum here any more for pre-built PCs), the Lenovo Ideacentre AIO 330. I was already thinking it was a bit low spec due to the Pentium Silver J5005 CPU, but when I opened it up I noticed that it only had a 2.5" HDD rather than the 3.5" I expected... ooookay... then I pulled the drive and its label said 'SMR HDD'.

Wow, those winter nights processing a feature update must have flown by!

I'm installing Win10 clean onto an SSD now.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just when you thought that pre-built OEM PCs couldn't get any slower in the storage dept... and then they replace the normally abysmally-slow bog-standard 5400RPM 2.5" laptop-sized HDD with an SMR (!) drive instead.

Jeez. Why not just use a flash drive.

Edit: Scratch that, they might just switch to eMMC. Be THANKFUL that they even had a 2.5" SATA connector / bay, that you COULD upgrade to a (real) SSD.

 

[mikeymikec]

Once I had to wonder what the company 'Zoostorm' was smoking when I encountered a typical tower chassis (not slim tower, standard mATX size, normal ATX PSU) with a 2.5" HDD... did that really save them any money?

At least with this AIO (only 19" screen I'd say), there wasn't a great deal of room left over for the HDD.