Lenovo Yoga Blitz Includes Tablet With Built-In Projector

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Lenovo upped its innovation game for its Yoga-brand laptops and tablets announcing Thursday four new devices with innovative features including a built-in Pico projector in a tablet and new "watchband" hinge technology for a new convertible notebook.

With help from celebrity and Lenovo product engineer and pitchman Ashton Kutcher at a London event, the Chinese computer king announced the big update to its Yoga line including models catering to the SMB customers and consumers.

But despite the fact Lenovo touts its channel-friendly roots, it said all products announced Thursday are designed for the consumer market and will not be made available to the commercial channel.

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Stealing most of the new product spotlight was the 13-inch Yoga Tablet 2 Pro with its star feature - a built-in Pico projector capable of projecting 16:9 50-inch high-resolution image on "any surface," according to the company. The projector, located on the side of the device at the end of a large cylinder design, has a 15 hours battery life when used for regular tablet functions, but only three hours in projector mode. The tablet will set you back $500 and will be available in both a Windows or Android flavors.

"Lenovo is an extremely innovative company, that is proving to the naysayers that the PC platform still has plenty of life," said Grant Nadell, managing director of technology at DynTek Services, a Newport Beach, Calif. Lenovo partner.

On Wednesday, IDC reported Lenovo is was the top supplier of PCs in the world with a 20 percent share of the market in the third quarter of 2014. According to Nadell, Lenovo has made large inroads into the commercial space earning a reputation for reliability and also having a sense of style when it comes to its Yoga brand.

Nadell also credited Lenovo for its attention to detail, including thing such as a watchband hinge that features 800 precision-machined, hand-assembled components used in its Yoga 3 Pro, announced Thursday. The Windows-based convertible notebook that sports an Intel Core M-70 processor, has a base configuration price of $1,350.

On the business side, Lenovo launched the ThinkPad Yoga 14 aimed squarely at the SMB market. Pricing starts at $1,100 for the base configuration of Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB DDR3L, 1TB HDD, with 8 hours of battery life, and weighing in at 4.1 pounds.

Nadell said despite the fact the new Yoga lineup may not be available in commercial channels he appreciated the design and innovation and anticipated seeing the models come to the enterprise via BYOD. "They may be a far second behind Apple, but Lenovo is the closest thing to PC chic."