Lenovo continues CES invasion with IdeaCentre B-series all-in-ones and refreshed desktops

By: Vince

 

If you thought Lenovo was going to stop its announcements at ultrabooks and netbooks, you obviously don’t know the company very well. The Chinese announcement marathon continued with a bunch of solid desktop computers and refreshed all-in-ones.

 

More specifically, the IdeaCentre B-series got a refresh in the form of the B540 and B340 powerful all-in-ones, while the Lenovo desktop family got new members from the IdeaCentre K and H series.

IdeaCentre B540 and B340

Let’s start with the IdeaCentre B540 and B340 all-in-ones. The B540 will come with a 23-inch full HD display out of the box, while the lower-end B340 sports a 21.5-inch one.Lenovo says the new B-series have an improved multi-touch technology and can be ordered with 3D screens if you want. 

Lenovo IdeaCentre B540 and B340

The company doesn’t get too specific on the processor part, but both machines will have Intel Core CPUs of some kind, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 2TB SATA III hard drives and up to 1GB-packing NVIDIA GeForce 615M graphics card.

Both AIOs can be purchased with the optional OnKey TV4, which is Lenovo’s own way of switching between the PC and TV modes of the computer. There’s also a picture-in-picture mode and the ability to watch just TV without powering the PC on. Expect the refreshed B-series in June with a starting price of $699.

IdeaCentre K430 and Lenovo H520s

Moving on to the tower desktops we come upon the IdeaCentre K430, which is a real treat if you are loaded enough to spec it to the max. It’s powered by Intel Core i7 CPUs, up to 32GB of DDR3 SDRAM, dual-graphics support by either NVIDIA or AMD, and up to 4TB of HDD configured in RAID 0. 

Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 and H520s

The H520s, unlike its more powerful brother, chooses to provide better value for money instead of ultimate performance. It comes with an Intel Core family CPU, 2GB AMD Radeon HD7570 or a 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GPU and 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM. The maximum storage available is 2TB.

The IdeaCentre K430 will be available in May with a starting price tag of $599, while the H520s will pop up in June for $499.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Review

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet is an Android Honeycomb 3.1 tablet with a 10", 1280 x 800 IPS Gorilla Glass display and the usual internals: 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core CPU, a gig of RAM, plenty of internal storage, dual cameras, WiFi, Bluetooth and a GPS. What sets it apart from many Honeycomb tablets is the N-Trig Duo Sense dual digitizer. That means it's both capacitive multi-touch and it works with the optional $30 active digitizer pen. The pen is more precise than a capacitive stylus and it supports 99 levels of pressure sensitivity.

The HTC Jetstream uses the same digitizer technology, but HTC's pen costs $80. But with the Jetstream you get pen support everywhere for both control and scribbling with the pen, while the Lenovo tablet supports it in the Notes Mobile app and in the PDF viewer for annotation but not in other built-in apps. Third party apps like Alias Sketchbook Pro do support it though.





The tablet has that classic ThinkPad build quality and look, complete with Lenovo's soft touch matte finish on the back and metal ThinkPad logos. The pen fits neatly into a silo and it has a red tip that recalls Lenovo's TrackPoint look. The optional and lovely folio case with keyboard likewise has an optical pointer stick embedded in the keyboard that looks like the red TrackPoint.







The tablet is hefty at 1.65 pounds, but it's in the same ballpark as the Motorola Xoom, Asus Eee Pad Transformer and other non-anorexic tablets. The IPS display with wide viewing angles, added ports and sturdy ThinkPad build set it apart from the $100 cheaper Lenovo IdeaPad K1 tablet we reviewed a few months back.

The ThinkPad Tablet has a full size USB host port that works with keyboards, mice and flash drives. We didn't have much luck with a 500 gig WD MyPassport unpowered portable drive. It powered up just fine but didn't mount. Lenovo includes a basic USB file transfer app with a bare bones UI, but you can use third party file managers with USB flash drives. Media on flash drives automatically appears in apps like Gallery, and that means the driver integrates into the OS ( Sony Tablet S are you listening?).





The tablet has a micro USB port for file transfer and charging, a mini HDMI port, SD card slot and a SIM card slot, though the 3G version of the ThinkPad isn't available yet.

The ThinkPad tablet with WiFi (not 3G) sells for $499 for the 16 gig model, $569 for the 32 gig and $669 for the 64 gig model. It's available now. The pen is $30 and the Keyboard Folio is $100.

Here's our Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet video review. Our full review will follow in the coming week.

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By Lisa Gade
Editor in Chief, MobileTechReview

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook Video Review

By: Lisa Gade
Editor in Chief, MobileTechReview  

 

The IdeaPad U300s is Lenovo's first ultrabook. In fact it's one of the first ultrabooks on the market, period. We took a look at the Asus Zenbook UX31 ultrabook last week, and the Acer Aspire S3 rounds out the first runners. Intel came up with the ultrabook concept, and it's basically an initiative to bring MacBook Air-like laptops to the world of Windows manufacturers. These machines are fast, have Intel ULV Core i5 and i7 CPUs, SSD drives (OK, Acer cheated on that one), are less than 0.8" think and weigh around 3 pounds.





The Lenovo IdeaPad U300s clearly derives from the very attractive and unique looking IdeaPad U260 that launched early this year. The U300s is much slimmer, is lighter and has better battery life. The casing is aluminum and it's a very attractive machine in gray. Lenovo will also offer it in Clementine orange (just like the U260), for those who like a little flair. The U300s should be available in the coming weeks.





The U300s comes in two configurations: a $1,099 model with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 and 128 gig SSD, and a $1,499 model that has a 1.8GHz Core i7 and a 256 gig SSD. Either way you'll get a 13.3" gloss LED backlit display running at 1366 x 768, 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM and Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics. The U300s has Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 WiFi and Bluetooth. The battery is sealed inside, and battery life has averaged 5.5 to 6 hours for us so far.





The pricing is similar to the Zenbook, but when comparing the base model U300s to the UX31, the Lenovo has a slightly slower CPU. They achieve parity on the high end models, though Lenovo went with 1366 x 768 resolution on both models, and that's put to shame by the Zenbook's 1600 x 900 display and the MacBook Air's 1440 x 900 display. But the IdeaPad is still a fast and elegant machine in wafer-thin metal jacket, and we can understand if you've got one on your wish list.


Here's our Lenovo IdeaPad U300s video review, with Zenbook comparison. Our full written review will follow in the coming days.