CES 2012 Lenovo Lounge
Ah, CES. The crowds, the aching feet, the complete and utter lack of any moisture in the air. But the lovely, lovely gadgets and toys make up for all of that. I'm not sure what constitutes being a CES veteran but this is my 4th one so, if I'm not a veteran, at least I'm not feeling like a noob any more. As you would expect, I spent most of my time in and around the various Lenovo facilities talking about our new products. Many of them have already been covered in depth, but I'll add some personal commentary distilled out of my interactions with our customers, business partners and the press about one of my favorites. And by that, I mean that while I obviously know the SPECS of our systems and may have even physically seen them once or twice before CES, over the course of talking to folks about something for 5 days, it really gives me a chance to live with the machine for a while and really figure out how I feel about it and whether it's something that speaks to me personally. Now onto the A720, our new IdeaCentre all-in-one PC. If you haven't seen it or heard about it, have a look here. While I certainly do get the utility/usage model/attractiveness of All-in-One desktops, they are not anything that's ever been at the top of my personal purchase list, mostly because I've always considered myself a laptop (or fully-expandable desktop) kind of guy. Even if they did tilt a bit , touchscreens on traditional...
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Enhanced Experience 2012
Where is the Enhanced Experience at CES this year? Rest assured we have some great technology we are working on for our 2012 systems. But in the interim, I’d like to highlight one particular co-engineering effort that’s timely and a great example of what the Enhanced Experience is all about. One of the best parts of my job at Lenovo is collaboration with partners who share a dedication to providing the absolute best customer experience possible. Take AuthenTec, for example, the company that makes the fingerprint sensor solution that ships on many Lenovo ThinkPad laptop PCs. They understand one of the tenets of the Enhanced Experience development philosophy – never be satisfied, always strive for improvement. With the advent of their new TCS5D smart sensor with the TCD51 biometric companion processor we looked together at ways to further improve the performance of the Power-On Authentication feature which allows users to quickly boot or resume their system from standby with the swipe of a finger. Power On Authentication eliminates the typical delay and interruption of the laptop’s pause and the need for the user to enter a Windows password, enhancing the customer experience while also providing the protection of biometric security. Any small improvement we could identify would translate directly to faster time-to-productivity for the end user. Here is a side-by-side video of the...
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IdeaPad A1 Tablets
It’s officially down to crunch time to finalize your holiday shopping list. Still haven’t found everything you need? Have no fear, Lenovo has a true cornucopia of stocking-stuffer toys to please everyone on your list. The Little Tablet That Impresses The IdeaPad A1 tablet has been turning a lot of heads – it’s a mere 7 inches, comes in four fun colors (black, white, blue and pink) and has all of the fun multimedia capabilities you want on an Android tablet. Plus, the price is just right starting at only $249. Accessorizing Your Tablet Keep your new ThinkPad Tablet warm, cozy and clean with one of our tablet cover sleeves or cases. ThinkPad Tablet case sleeve – Sleek, soft and designed to fit your ThinkPad Tablet perfectly, this neoprene constructed sleeve is just $17.99. ThinkPad Tablet Folio case – Not only does this folio case protect your beloved tablet from accidental physical harm in the form of scratches, it provides adjustable positioning with two angle options depending on your use-case. You’ll also have full access to all your ports and tablet pen slot when the case is on. The World’s Smallest Desktop- Turn Your TV Into an Entertainment Control Center What does the Lenovo Q180 desktop have in common with a paperback book? They’re the same size! Say hello to a sleek, slim and powerful desktop featuring an Intel Atom dual core processor. Connect it to your TV, and voila you can...
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Today we’re sitting down with Sam Morris, Lenovo’s education expert, and Jarrett York, North American product manager for the new ThinkPad X130e, to talk about the laptop and how its design has been heavily influenced by Lenovo’s broad experience in education. Lenovo Files: Can you describe the motivators in focusing so much energy and resources on developing this new product? Sam: As more and more schools are deploying PCs to students, it’s clear the day-to-day activities for students are vastly different than those of the mobile workforce. This has led to many situations where the wear and tear on the laptops has resulted in an overload of repairs and replacements, and as a result decreased learning outcomes and operational efficiencies. LF: How did you assess the impact of the wear and tear? Sam: In addition to industry metrics about repair rates, we also examined our internal data for service and warranty claims. We found that laptops in education were four times more likely to need service than the laptops deployed with our military. In addition, through our advisory councils and our annual ThinkTank conference, we surveyed our education customers about the importance of “ruggedness.” The responses indicated that this was universally critical. LF: Can you elaborate more on the work you did to ensure that the X130e met the needs of education? Jarrett: We’ve analyzed the warranty and service claims over the...
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Guest blogger and PC modification (modding) extraordinaire, Dean Liou, takes us through his journey to create his coolest arcade dock mod to date. Let’s start at the beginning of my journey to create the X1 Arcade Dock mod, on June 14th, one month into the project. I filmed the final result on October 9th, nearly six months after I first put my pencil on the drawing board. Fear not, good readers, as it wasn’t six whole months of non-stop sleepless modding -- it was closer to just 10 weekends of blood, sweat and tears*. Hey, I gotta work during the week, ya know? And together with my wife, we have two kids to worry about (*tears were mostly theirs). This is my second arcade dock project, which is essentially an encore to the first arcade dock I created last year – a 15" widescreen IdeaPad Y560 built as an homage to Street-Fighter. It featured a joystick and eight buttons based on a standard bar-top arcade kit purchased online and modified to fit the dock. This second project was much more ambitious as I wanted to create everything from scratch in terms of the cabinet and physical structure. My formula and objectives were as follows: 1. Cut out the middleman arcade kit purchase (why buy and end up modding it anyway?) 2. Design my OWN arcade kit instead, with all the fittings to be a laptop dock 3. Make it awesome and MASS-producible* *Mass-producing this dock was a minor detail that turned into a major problem! May...
