Let's Talk Tech
It’s insane how light this laptop is. Lenovo and NEC partnered to build a notebook PC with one goal in mind: The World’s Lightest Laptop. No performance compromises as the LaVie Z is packing a Core i7 processor, but did they have to skimp elsewhere? Let’s take a look!
Shop the LaVie Z on Amazon.
LaVie Z Speaker Test.
More info on the LaVie Z.
Lenovo’s third iteration of the Yoga laptop is an ambitious product. Trying to compete against laptops and tablets, while maintaining better-than-tablet performance, in a fan-less shell.
Has Lenovo bitten off more than they can chew? Let’s take a look at the Yoga 3 11!
Shop the Yoga 3 11
Yoga 3 Speaker Test (Laptop Mode)
Yoga 3 Speaker Test (Stand Mode)
As Lenovo continues their lead as the number one PC manufacturer, the company took the wraps off of two new lines of laptops available next month.
Lenovo Z41/51
Billed as the “Ultimate multimedia workstation for music and movie lovers”, these new Z laptops are focused on home entertainment. Full HD displays will be powered by Intel processors (up to a Core i7) and there will be options for discreet AMD graphics. Dolby is on tap for their surround sound technology, and the Z51 will also come with Intel’s RealSense 3D front facing camera. The RealSense camera can be used for gaming, capturing 3D photos, or scanning objects for 3D printing.
The 14″ Z41 and 15″ Z51 will start at $499. A Z51 with 3D camera and 8GB of RAM will sell for $599
Lenovo Ideapad 100
Getting down to basics, this new Ideapad is focused on delivering a streamlined experience at a low price.
In 14 and 15 inch flavors, Ideapad 100 borrows from recent tablet success using an Intel BayTrail low power processor, and can be configured with up to 500GB of storage. The slim notebook will start at $249 when it’s released later next month.
You can catch Lenovo’s full press release below.
Continue reading “Lenovo Announces Z41/Z51 and Ideapad 100 “Simple” Laptops”
Lenovo is building out a line of small form factor PC’s under the “THINK” branding. The hardware certainly has a business-grade focus, and can be paired with an excellent monitor dock. Is the M83 a good fit for personal use too? Let’s take a look!
Microsoft quietly took the wraps off their new Surface tablet, and it looks like a winner! Here’s the full scoop on their new consumer focused Windows tablet!
SuperFish has been an ugly security black mark for Lenovo. It’s often been a criticism in my reviews of their gear that they include too much “value added” software (bloat), and removing a lot of it will noticeably improve system performance.
SuperFish however was a piece of adware. If a Lenovo owner opted into the “service”, SuperFish would analyze images and searches to insert ads for similar products and to do cost comparisons. While that doesn’t sound terrible, behind the scenes SuperFish would install its own security certificates which allowed the service to intercept encrypted traffic.
It’s doubtful that Lenovo or SuperFish seriously wanted to peek in on your private and secured data, but such a gaping hole could easily have been exploited by another attacker.
Lenovo detailed that this adware package was only installed on consumer systems, not on Thinkpads and business systems. Today they’ve published details on removing the service, and they’ve released an app to aid in the removal.
It was time folks. My old rig was originally designed to edit audio, and moving into UHD and 60 FPS HD video, she just couldn’t keep up anymore. Say hello to my new video editing workstation. Freshly built and ready to destroy my future reviews!
The challenge was to build a tower with an OS for less than the price of a mid-range iMac (as I will be recycling my displays, speakers, keyboard, and mouse). How’d I do? Let’s take a look!
Full parts list below:
Continue reading “Build Your Own PC! SomeGadgetGuy’s New Video Editing Workstation for 2015!”
HP has a bold new move to spark customer’s interest in PC’s again. They’re going BACKWARDS! That always works! People love a good nostalgia play!
Announced recently on their site and through an email blitz, HP proudly proclaimed they’re “listening to the consumer” and offering up systems running Microsoft’s last popular OS. It’s a desperate move from a company which has been struggling recently to adapt to a post-PC market. The parallels with Blackberry here are astounding. As BB was caught unprepared for consumers buying pretty smartphones, HP hasn’t been able to figure out their offerings in a world where iPads exist.
Pandering to a media narrative which is all too ready to baselessly criticize Windows 8, HP seems to be banking on the technology “hater” market to pull them out of their slump. You know, that group of people who rail against change and spend TONS of money on things like old laptops. That last sentence was sarcasm by the way. Regardless, I’m sure this will prove a winning strategy for the beleaguered tech firm (also sarcasm).
Here’s the fault in their logic. With all the haterade being dumped on Windows 8, You’d think every manufacturer would be in trouble. As a whole the entire industry is down 15-20% depending on who you ask to track the sales. Unfortunately for those taking glee in Microsoft’s stumble, companies like Asus and Lenovo exist, and both are actually improving their sales during this transition which is unprecedented. Built on the backs of innovative and creative design, Lenovo profits over the 2012/13 fiscal year were up almost 18% over the 2011/12 fiscal year. Embracing Windows 8, and providing consumers innovative products at competitive prices, seems to have worked for Lenovo.
The other major problem with HP’s reasoning is Apple. Continue reading “Editorial: HP’s Catastrophic Mistake – Bringing Windows 7 ‘back by popular demand’…”