Let's Talk Tech
It’s Saturday! Which means we spend the morning wrapping up all the week’s tech news. Catch opinions from the editors of Boored At Work, Mobile Burn, BWOne, and yours truly as we chat out this week’s headlines.
On the docket:
Sit back and relax. We’ve got tech to talk!
Over the last year Lenovo weathered the changing PC market better than any other manufacturer. Following Windows 8, the industry as a whole saw sales drop around 15%. Lenovo stayed pretty flat during that time, which is unprecedented performance during the release of something as unfamiliar as Windows 8. Products like the Yoga Laptop which swiveled into various usage scenarios. It’s no surprise they’re now the number one manufacturer of PC’s worldwide.
During that same time however, Lenovo shipped more tablets and phones than they did PC’s. They’re not as widely known here states-side for their mobile gear, but they’re looking to change that and crack this market like they did laptops and desktops. Unveiled last night, Lenovo took the wraps off the Yoga Tablet, and they think they’ve found A Better Way to use a mobile slate.
The Android 4.2 tablets comes in two flavors based on screen size, a Yoga Tablet 8 and a Yoga Tablet 10. Both feature the same resolution 1280 x 800, and both will come in 16GB and 32GB models with the ability to add more storage via MicroSD. A fairly modest 1.2GHz quad-core was chosen, probably to keep cost lower, and should play well with the lower resolution screens to keep performance snappy and battery life high. Front and rear cameras are on board, with the latter utilizing a 5MP sensor.
The Yoga tablet design hinges on the cylindrical battery bulge running lengthwise down the tablet’s screen. This allows Lenovo to include a physically larger battery than most other tablets. It also allows for a swivel kickstand to be hidden into the back plate of the Yoga. The design is refreshing, as it gives you something to hold on to. Going from holding to propping it up, you can dial in specific angles, or turn it around for “Tilt Mode” where the tablet is easiest to enter in text, and it starts to look a lot like Apple’s Magic Trackpad.
Best of all, it’s that bulge which allows the tablet to run for up to 18 hours. Of all the hardware specs people might care about, performance and screen resolution, none of them mean much if your tablet is out of juice. “All day and then some” run time will be a welcome spec for many consumers. A nice side benefit, you can use the Yoga to charge your phone, simply great consideration for how tablets are becoming our preferred companion devices.
Lenovo saw fit to add in front facing stereo speakers, always a nice touch for audio junkies like myself. I’ll be curious to see how they perform when I get my hands on one later. The cylinder houses the power button one end and the headphone jack on the other.
With some many manufacturers targeting “premier” experiences, it might strike some as odd that Lenovo is building their Yoga line around some fairly mid-range specs. The aggressive prices points make a lot of sense in this space however, and Yoga Tablet 8 will start at $249. Impressively, Yoga Tablet 10 will only creep up to $299.
Lenovo’s design aesthetic here strays farther away from the traditional slate than any other slab I’ve seen recently, and that might be enough to improve Lenovo’s mindshare here in the USA. You can catch Lenovo’s Yoga keynote after the jump.
Continue reading “Lenovo’s New Yoga Tablet Offers 18 Hour Run Time and Built in Kickstand”
It’s official. Windows Netbook-y machines are dead. Long live Tablets and Hybrids!
It looks like people are starting to get Windows 8, and no company has showcased the benefits of Microsoft’s newest operating system than Lenovo. Even during the worst of the PC sales slump, Lenovo was floating almost zero loss in sales. Any change as drastic as this you would expect consumers to react negatively (just ask Apple about their painful transition to OSX), but Lenovo floated steady. Buoyed by a line up of flex-y and twisty computers which wonderfully showed off Windows 8’s strengths.
Now with Windows 8.1 on the horizon, Microsoft’s strategy is incredibly clear. They aren’t trying to walk into the traditional Tablet market. They aren’t trying to “save” the PC market. They’re trying to redefine both and combine those markets. Why have a slate for fun little apps and a laptop for work when you could have both?
Lenovo’s playing into this round with one of the most affordable tablets to hit Microsoft’s ecosystem. The Miix 2 is an 8″ slate powered by an Intel “Baytrail” quad-core Atom processor and 2GB of RAM. Miix2 will feature front and rear cameras, and like previous 8″ Windows tablets it includes the Home & Student edition of Office. Prices start at $299 for a 32GB model, and there are also some great accessories announced alongside. Users can pick up an optional keyboard cover and stylus to further improve their productivity.
So there you have it folks. High-end netbook guts in an almost pocket-able mini slate which runs a proper version of Windows and arrives at a price point which competes against consumer Android mini tablets. It even undercuts the iPad Mini by $50 while offering up twice as much storage. It’s a pretty solid play by Lenovo, and it should be available later this month.
Full specs and PR after the jump.
Continue reading “Lenovo Announces Most Affordable Windows 8.1 Tablet – 8″ Miix 2 starting at $299”
Reading the news feeds I was kind of hoping that IBM was going to make a push back into the consumer market. After transferring their consumer/business hardware solutions to Lenovo, they’ve become a company with a solid corporate reputation, but little consumer mind share.
Instead, what we’ll be seeing is a push to further Linux server solutions. Still very cool for the Linux ecosystem, and hopefully this means that some of that money and attention reaches consumer hardware down the line. It’s coming at a time where Linux has unseated Unix, but still trails Windows Server by a significant margin. IBM recently released a new line of rack mounted Linux servers, so they have a vested interest in the Linux ecosystem expanding.
The $1 Billion should be paid out over a 4-5 year period, and initially will focus on cloud solutions powered by IBM hardware.
More news to follow during LinuxCon, and I’ll update this post if there are any surprising new developments.
Now then IBM, about us consumers, could you throw us a bone? Maybe offer some contextual search services we could play with? I’d pay to have a Watson app on my phone.
Lenovo is waging an all out war on Windows 8 touchscreen laptops. Yogas and Twists for more portable, tablet style laptop computing, now they’re introducing a new line of bendy notebooks for people wanting larger screens.
The Flex will come in 14″ and 15.6″ flavors, and comes with the neat hinge trick of swiveling 300 degrees around to prop the screen up in “Stand Mode” to focus on touch apps. It’s a set up I use a lot with my Twist, especially when I’m eating to prevent junk landing on my keyboard. Maybe I Reddit too much, and should take more breaks. Who knows. Prices start at $629 for Flex Laptops.
Also, the Yoga is getting a refresh! Yoga 2 will now be sporting a QHD+ screen. At 3200×1800, it’s four times the resolution of the original Yoga in a 16:9 aspect ratio. It’s disturbingly close to a 4K screen, shocking at only 13.3″. It still retains the keyboard flip, where the base folds behind the screen to offer a tablet mode. All new tech, and it’s also thinner than the previous Yoga.
Lastly, a new version of Yoga will sport the ThinkPad moniker. For business folks looking for an ultra mobile touchscreen solution, a 12.5″ 1080p version of Yoga clad in classic Lenovo black will also be available. Along with Lenovo’s business grade tools like the fantastic Thinkpad keyboard, it’ll also have NFC on board for better connectivity with phones and other accessories. Expect to see Yoga 2 start at $1099 and ThinkPad Yoga around $949.
All of this new Lenovo gear is expected to be available Later this month.
Full PR after the jump.
Continue reading “Lenovo shows off FLEX and Yoga 2 multi-mode touchscreen laptops”
It’s happened to you at some point. You’re busy, in the middle of doing something on a laptop. You aren’t able to get to a charger, but you’re trying to wrap up what you’re working on. Even if you have a spare battery charged and ready, you still probably want to safely power down your lappy rather than just yank the battery out. It sounds like a first world problem, but when you’re in the zone, it can be a pain.
Lenovo might have a solution for you weary laptop warrior. Utilizing their new “Power Bridge” technology newer Thinkpads will be able to swap a battery without having to shut the system off. This is a welcome improvement to power management. In combination with Intel’s new Haswell processors, newer Thinkpad laptops and Ultrabooks should be good for substantially longer run time. Lenovo is claiming to the tune of 17 hours in between charges.
More news regarding Lenovo’s updates to the T, X, and S Series notebooks after the jump.
Continue reading “Lenovo Intros Thinkpads with Hot-Swap battery”