RSSLenovo intros multimedia PCs for gaming, dual-screen laptop
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published January 6, 2009, 3:16 PM
With the exception of the high-end, business-oriented ThinkPad W700ds, all of Lenovo's product rollouts at this week's CES 2009 will be aimed at consumers, company officials told BetaNews.
At CES 2009 this week, Lenovo is launching an all-in-one desktop and three new notebooks, all geared to multimedia entertainment and gaming. The Chinese-based computer company, spun off from IBM a few years back, is also upgrading its W700 ThinkPad with an optional slide-out second screen and its S10 subnotebook with social networking software.
Lenovo first dipped its toes into the US consumer waters at CES 2008, with the introduction of its first IdeaPad notebook PCs for this market.
The upgraded ThinkPad W700ds, though, should draw a lot of attention because of its 17-inch main display and its 10.5-inch secondary display. Lenovo has also provided a more affordable quad processor and increased the maximum amount of RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. During the pre-briefing, Ninis Samuel, Lenovo's director of marketing, drew an analogy between the second screen and the side rearview mirror on a car. The smaller screen "kind of sits at a 30-degree angle," according to Samuel.
Research shows that business workers are 60% more productive when using dual displays, he contended. Samuel predicted that the smaller screen will be used for viewing online reference materials, e-mail, and social networking sites, for instance.
Lenovo will also display some other business PCs at the show. "But that's not the focus of CES," noted Craig Merrigan, Lenovo's VP of branding and strategy.
Consumer models set for rollout include the IdeaCenter A600 All-in-One and the IdeaPad Y650, Y550 and Y430 laptops, all outfitted with screens with 16:9 aspect ratios.
Lenovo's new all-in-one offers a frameless, 21-5-inch screen with 1920 x 1080 "full" HD resolution. It also comes with a unique new four-in-one optional remote controller, combining a "motion drive," for accessing on-screen gaming objects according to the movement of the remote; a VoIP handset; a Vista Media Center/TV remote; and an air mouse for wireless control of the cursor on the screen.
The all-in-one provides Intel Core 2 Duo processing technology; up to 1 TB of hard drive space; up to 4 GB of fast DDR3 memory; an optional Blu-ray player; a bass sub-woofer; Dolby Home Theater audio certification; high-speed Wi-Fi; a 6-in-1 media card reader; VeriFace face recognition technology, for using a facial image as your logon password; and side-mounted USB and FireWire ports with extra USB ports on the rear of the panel.
Lenovo's newly expanded lineup of Y Series notebooks adds three new 16:9 aspect screen sizes: the 16-inch Y650, 15.6-inch Y550, and 14-inch Y450. All come with Intel processors; Dolby Home Theater surround sound; optional Nvidia GFX graphics for video and gaming; and Lenovo OneKey Theater software for adjusting the display and sound effect settings. The software includes a "movie mode" for optimizing the picture when watching movies or playing games. All of the IdeaPads are configurable with up to 500 GB of hard drive space and up to 4 GB of memory.
With a chassis constructed of special materials such as carbon fiber, the top-of-the-line Y650 is only one-inch thick at its thinnest point. The Y650 also comes with JBL speakers, the Lenovo officials said.
Meanwhile, Lenovo has updated the IdeaPad S10 netbook with Lenovo Quick Start, for rapid access to frequently used applications, and LenovoSocial, a new set of social networking software tools which the company plans to expand on in the future.
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|Why not 8GB of memory?
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|Because it undoubtedly comes with a 32 bit version of Vista, which can only utilize 4gb of RAM.
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|"Why not 8GB of memory"
Go back and try reading the article this time?
"... increased the maximum amount of RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB."
And all of the mods offered here were announced when the W700 was initially released.
This is simply an 'availability' notice.
Nice machines! I just wish they would accomodate the 4GB RAM modules and allow us to have 16 GB for hosting multiple simultaneous VMs!
And this will really scream as the new low power i7s arrive in a quarter or two!
Now, if Apple would only get its head out of its posterior and release a similar MacBook Pro to the W700 so we can also run OSX (if they aren't going to release it for non-Apple PCs!) there would be even more rejoicing.
As far as for basic consumer machines are concerned, as mentioned below, most cannot take advantage of more than 3GB of RAM anyway. But this is quickly changing as environments other than Windows can.
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|"as mentioned below, most cannot take advantage of more than 3GB of RAM anyway. But this is quickly changing as environments other than Windows can."
Don't try to pretend that Windows is the only operating system that is "incapable" of addressing more than 4GB (or even 3-3.5GB) of RAM in a 32-bit environment. The inability of addressing more than 3GB is hardly a Windows-exclusive issue. If it were, then I would think it would require more than simple BIOS updates to fix the affected motherboards.
It's an x86 hardware problem. All 32-bit operating systems have this limitation, though Windows receives the lion's share of negativity regarding this... naturally.
Physical Address Extension (the ability to access up to 64GB of physical memory) has been present in every Intel x86 processor since the Pentium Pro. Every version of Windows since Windows 2000 has been able to take advantage of it via boot.ini switches.
...and I agree. These are definitely nice machines. I'm really looking forward to their new product line.
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|Don't be a wise guy, FF...and re-read yourself:
the allinone = only 4gb... ddr3 too-- be nice to at least have 3x2gb for it...
Point is to really advance-- go the 64bit or 32bit w/ pae route...some desktop boards are now supporting 130+gb....
Dual monitor seems like a great idea... dual hard drive, even if only two smaller ones, would really top the icing on the cake.
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|duplicate
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|"Don't try to pretend that Windows is the only operating system that is "incapable" of addressing more than 4GB (or even 3-3.5GB) of RAM in a 32-bit environment. The inability of addressing more than 3GB is hardly a Windows-exclusive issue. If it were, then I would think it would require more than simple BIOS updates to fix the affected motherboards.
It's an x86 hardware problem. All 32-bit operating systems have this limitation, though Windows receives the lion's share of negativity regarding this... naturally."
What? Increase your lithium dosage! LOL!
Nitwit, the hardware is already 64 bit compatible! All you need is an OS that supports 64bit memory addressing!
BIOS and x86 hardware? You obviously haven't a clue. Suse has been 64bit since ~1996, likewise OSX is 64 bit. Solaris and many other BSD/Linux OSes are 64 bit - even Windows! (imagine that!) But the vast majority of Windows users are 32bit! NOT 64 bit, while the majority of the other OSes are 32/64 bit compatible! Windows is one of the ONLY major OSes that still makes a hard distinction between 32 and 64 bit versions! Most others don't care!
But run off about your fantasy that this is a hardware issue! Or, a Windows issue! The W700 is compeletely 64bit compatible is you want to run a 64bit OS.
Your fanboy rant is superfluous!
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