Lenovo Gets Stylish With Lineup Refresh
The fresh take from Lenovo focuses on notebooks and a desktop. The company is also heating up the competition in the netbook space, unveiling an ultramobile notebook with a 12.1-inch form factor.
The 12.1-inch IdeaPad S12 netbook adds a full 2 inches to the size of Lenovo's previous offering. The extra size in the netbook allowed Lenovo to expand the keyboard on the machine to 100 percent of a full-size notebook.
After storming the market with an 8.9-inch form factor, netbooks have quickly grown from their original specs, jumping to 10.1 inches. Recently, Acer lifted the curtain on an 11.6-inch Aspire One Netbook. Lenovo, however, has now bested that form factor.
The S12 netbook is powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor and can handle up to 1 GB of DDR 2 memory. The netbook also has options to support up to 320 GB of storage. With a three-cell battery, the 12.1-inch netbook weighs about 3 pounds and measures about an inch thick.
But Lenovo didn't stop with just a larger form factor. The company decided to add support for an Nvidia Ion graphics card and equipped the S12 with the ability to handle an external HDMI port. According to the vendor, the decision to include support for Nvidia graphics came from customer feedback. The graphics card and port allow users to export 1,080p HD video to a television without losing quality in the picture.
The Lenovo S12 netbook will start at $449.
Also getting a refresh with an eye toward light and thin are the IdeaPad U350 laptop and Lenovo G550 laptop.
The IdeaPad U350 is a 13.3-inch notebook built on Intel's ultra-low-voltage processors. While the form factor of the notebook is a step up from the S12, Lenovo doesn't burden the machine with additional weight. At about 3 1/2 pounds and an inch thick at its thinnest point, the IdeaPad is still highly portable.
The laptop supports up to 8 GB of DDR 3 memory and up to 500 GB of storage, depending on configuration, and the eight-cell battery delivers about 10 hours of life.
One important thing to note about the IdeaPad U350, however, is its lack of an optical drive. According to a company spokesperson, Lenovo decided to opt out on the optical drive, feeling that customers are more likely to download music, movies and other media rather than view them off a disk.
The Lenovo G550 laptop is a 15-inch notebook with an HD LED screen and weighs in at less than 5 pounds. The standard model comes equipped with an Intel Centrino2 processor, but the notebook is capable of supporting a Core 2 Duo processor as well. In addition, options are available to get a 320-GB hard drive and 8 GB of DDR 3 memory.
Lenovo also provided a full-size keyboard on the G55 laptop. That means that in addition to a right shift key, a numeric keypad is also included on the notebook, something typically not seen in a laptop less than 17 inches.
The IdeaPad U350 and Lenovo G550 laptop will start at $649 and $599, respectively.
Finally, Lenovo has brought some of its netbook architecture to its desktop with the C300 All-In-One Desktop. The C300 runs on an Intel Atom 230 processor, a bit light for a desktop, and sports a 20-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
The Lenovo C300 All-In-One desktop looks like a TV and sits on a stand and, at 2.2-inches thick, packs style and design into a small form factor. The All-In-One desktop has built-in wireless, reducing clutter on a desk or kitchen counter.
Because the All-In-One desktop is built on an Intel Atom 230 processor, the company doesn't envision it doing some of the heavy computing of other desktops. Instead, the C300 is meant for everyday computing, surfing the Web and interacting on social networks.
The Lenovo C300 All-In-One Desktop starts at $449.