Lenovo tends to show off impressive hardware every CES, leaving us waiting until the products actually hit the market. This year is no exception, with a slew of systems to make us positively quiver with anticipation.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to keep holding our breath for American Lenovo smartphones. Four new impressive handsets were unleashed, but the Vibe Z, S930, S650, and A859 are headed to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines next month. That makes it a tad difficult to review these phones from the States. The good news is, Lenovo has said it does, eventually, plan to join the crowded U.S. market.
C’mon in, there’s lots of room!
If you’re a fan of all-in-one units, Lenovo has a few new systems coming for you. The C560 is a 23″ HD device aimed at the home user. Touch is only an option (starting at $559 next month), which is baffling for a 2014 device, even if you might not want to get fingerprints all over that stunning screen. In the case of the Horizon 2, Lenovo absolutely wants you to touch it. The follow up to last October’s Horizon (review coming soon), the Horizon 2 is a “tabletop” all-in-one, meant to be a cross between a tablet and a desktop. The newer model adds updated processing power, motion controls, and improved sharing from Android devices. With the original Horizon recently released on the market and the Horizon 2 not due out until June (starting at $1,499), you might not want to wait. But we think you should consider it.
Remember Microsoft’s original Surface smart table? Lenovo clearly does.
There’s also the A740 AIO, which grabs attention by including gesture controls like the Horizon 2, as well as an NFC chip. Interestingly, it costs the same $1,499 as the H2, comes out at the same time, and is also a 27″ multi-touch device. It begs the question, why not just get the Horizon 2?
Maybe it just looks more “professional”?
If you don’t like Windows but want a Lenovo AIO, there’s the N308. Starting at $450 and out next month, this slim device runs Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) on a 19.5″ 1600 x 900 touchscreen. The N308 also has a 500 GB hard drive, quad-core Tegra processor, 720p webcam, and can lay flat for tabletop mode, like the aforementioned Horizon tablets, but at a significantly lower cost. You can even unplug for three hours thanks to the built-in battery.
Available in finger-print prone white and dull black!
If you’re looking for a more portable tablet solution, the ThinkPad 8 is Lenovo’s first 8″ Windows 8.1 tablet. Yes, 8.1, not RT. That alone turns my head. Throw in an HD screen, quad-core Intel chip, MicroUSB, and MicroHDMI and you have an impressive device, even at the starting price of $399. Oh, and the the ThinkPad 8 goes on sale late January. As in this month.
A welcome change from the typical wait.
We’re in the middle of reviewing the first Lenovo Miix and Lenovo has already improved on it. As of March, there will be a 10″ Miix 2, with an 11″ following in April ($499/$699 respectively). A much more eye-catching design than the ThinkPad 8 or scores of generic Android tablets, the Miix 2 only weighs 1.2 pounds when docked in the keyboard, an improvement on the folio cover style keyboard of the original Miix. However, we’re not sure it’s worth the wait, especially when compared to other similar devices.
Quite a nice profile.
For the laptop lover, there’s lots to love. On the general consumer side, there’s the new Y series: a 14″ Y40 and 15″ Y50, armed with 4th gen Core i7 chips as well as the more multimedia oriented 14″ z40 or 15.6″ z50. The Y series start at $999 and you have time to save the cash, as it won’t be for sale until May. The Z series will be in shops in March, y starting at $599.
The Y series is certainly a more eye-catching Lenovo than we’re used to.
We loved the ThinkPad x31 Carbon, so there’s no shock that the ThinkPad x1 Carbon 2014 gets a smile from us. Weighing in at just 2.8 pounds, Lenovo says that this is the lightest 14″ Ultrabook in the world (give it to the end of CES, I say). With a sharper display, improved battery life, and updated overall specs, the X1 will be available in shops by the end of the current month. If you’re a fan of powerful portables, this is a safe bet.
The ThinkPad design remains an iconic classic.
Also updated are the Yoga 2 (review pending) and Flex 14D and 15D. Both remain the same visually, with the Flex’s main selling point again being the price (starting at $499)
I normally don’t get excited about displays, even the new super-duper-high resolution 4K ones (because bluntly, few affordable devices out there at the moment can output that), but the ThinkVison 28 makes a dent by being a smart display. It has a built-in Android system, running a Tegra chip. The goal is to seamlessly swap from being a work machine to an entertainment center.
“We work hard; we play hard.”
Finally, we have the surprise guest in the Lenovo Beacon. A personal cloud solution a la FreeNAS or PogoPlug, the Beacon supports 3G, WiFi, and wired Ethernet as ways to connect as well as one touch USB. With an Intel Atom chip on board, it may have enough power to back your media up or stream it. No details yet on what OS the Beacon sports or what sort of storage it will have beyond it being expandable to an impressive 6 TB (via two 3 TB drives), but we know that the device will be available in April starting at $199. As a friend of mine noted, this resembles a whole lot of solutions out there, but many of them use proprietary operating system, formats, or are for tech heads. If Lenovo can present a simple and powerful solution, then this could be a winner for them. It looks like the company has a strong year ahead in terms of products.
The cute factor is overwhelming me.
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