Virtual Reality
One surprising (to me anyway) capability of the Miix 700: it supports Intel Virtual Technology. The BIOS default is disabled. To turn it on, after doing a full shutdown from Windows (SHIFT+shutdown) access the Novo menu (POWER + VOL UP), then the configuration menu as shown in the “Breaking and Entering” section.
Toggle VT ON, save and exit.
Now that VT is enabled one can use any of several virtualization solutions. I tend to use the (free) VMWare Workstation Player.
Once it’s installed it can be used to build a virtual machine (from a downloaded ISO, or removable media for instance) or run an existing VM. I tested briefly with existing VMs copied from a desktop machine without any obvious issues.
VMs can take up considerable space on the SSD. I was able to test one or two at a time on the stock 64GB SSD but it got pretty cramped. Unless the target VM/OS is small it may be necessary to increase the main drive size. See Size Matters.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Have you tried upgrading the memory? Is it possible? How about installing a fresh Windows 10 install from a USB? Dual boot? I saw over at Tony mac they are experimenting with loading OSX on this. I have just bought the middle one for 475 on amazon (the 128GB 4GB M5 version) and i have a 512 Samsung m.2 that i am not using. In linux, did you get any of the pen functions to work? Thanks again.
Hi,
I’m not going to be of much help.
The RAM is soldered, so no memory upgrade.
Windows 10 should install just fine from a properly-prepared USB flash drive (FAT32, copy the contents of the install ISO to the flash drive).
I didn’t experiment with pen on the Miix running Linux. Just gave a quick try to the basics.
Is the Wi-Fi card replaceable or it’s soldiered like the RAM? Also do you know if there is “Whitelist lock” in the BIOS to prevent swapping with non-Lenovo parts? I see that you swapped the SSD, but wifi card might be different issue.
Great info, thanks!
The wifi card is a removable item. I believe it’s whitelisted.
Head over to the Lenovo forums, then SUPPORT and enter Miix 700 in the search box. That will pull up appropriate downloads including the Hardware Maintenance Manual.
The HMM shows how to access the wifi card and includes a parts list with the whitelisted FRU numbers.