Microsoft, Lenovo to promote genuine Windows on PCs
In the midst of its latest campaign to fight piracy in China, Microsoft has signed an agreement with Lenovo to ensure that its PCs ship with licensed versions of Windows software on its computers.
As part of the agreement signed Tuesday, Lenovo will also encourage its resellers to promote PCs with genuine Microsoft software.
Lenovo's pledge is notable, given that the company has long been China's largest PC vendor, with a market share of 36.7 percent. The company is also known to have a vast distribution network in the country that extends into China's smaller cities.
Microsoft has been fighting piracy in the country for years. In a recent survey, the company bought 169 PCs from the country's local electronic shops and found that all contained pirated Windows software. Read more...
Lenovo to open first U.S. manufacturing plant in N.C.
Lenovo on Tuesday said it will open its first computer manufacturing plant in the U.S., where it will make laptops, PCs and tablets sold under its Think brand.
Lenovo will open the factory early next year in Whitsett, North Carolina, where it said it will create about 115 manufacturing jobs. It will be Lenovo's first factory in the U.S., supplementing plants in Mexico, Brazil and its home base of China. Read more...
Lenovo acquires Stoneware to expand cloud products portfolio
Lenovo on Tuesday said it plans to acquire Stoneware, a small U.S. based company specializing in cloud products for schools and governments, as part of the PC maker's strategy to bolster its cloud computing offerings.
While Lenovo did not disclose financial terms of the deal, it said it expects to complete the acquisition of the Indianapolis-based Stoneware by year's end.
Stoneware is the developer of a webNetwork, a platform designed to unify an organization's IT services, along with LanSchool, another cloud-based product that allows teachers to distribute and manage content over classroom PCs and devices. Read more...
Lenovo and EMC join forces on storage, servers
Lenovo and EMC will team up to develop and sell server and storage technology, with an eye to the Chinese market, the companies said on Wednesday.
The partnership will improve Lenovo's standing in the server and storage space, while giving EMC greater access to China and other high-growth markets, the companies said in a statement.
Lenovo is fast rising to possibly become the world's top PC vendor later this year, already dominating in its home market of China. EMC, meanwhile, leads as the global top vendor for external disk and open networked disk storage systems, according to research firm IDC. Read more...
Lenovo packs ‘thinnest’ ThinkPad ultrabook with 4G LTE
Lenovo on Tuesday announced a range of new ThinkPads with Intel's latest third-generation Core processors, including a ThinkPad ultrabook that the company claims is the "thinnest ultrabook in the world."
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook has a 14-in. screen, weighs under 1.8 kilograms (3.9 pounds) and is 18.8-mm (.74 inches) thick. It will have the latest Intel ultrabook processors, code-named Ivy Bridge, which are expected to be officially announced next month.
Lenovo also updated the popular ThinkPad T-series and X-series lineups, making them faster while adding more battery life to the models. The company also has new connectivity and multimedia capabilities that could be helpful for business users. The laptops will be available on June 5. Read more...
A closer look at Lenovo’s enterprise and hybrid ultrabooks
Cashing in on the ultrabook excitement at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Lenovo has rolled out four of its own slimmed-down models, including one geared specifically for the enterprise.
Lenovo, which released its first ultrabook -- the U300S -- last October, worked on filling out its ultrabook offerings here at CES this week.
On Monday, Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's chairman and CEO, unveiled the IdeaPad Yoga, the company's hybrid ultrabook that can be flipped around to look like a tablet computer. Lenovo followed that news by releasing three more ultrabooks: the IdeaPad U310, a 13-in. ultrabook, the IdeaPad U410, a 14-in machine, and for enterprises, the ThinkPad T430U. Read more...
Intel fights for its future with smartphone deals
With Intel finally breaking into the burgeoning smartphone market, analysts say the company is moving to defend its turf -- and possibly even its future stability -- against an encroaching competitor.
On Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini told an audience at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) here that the company has inked deals to provide its upcoming Atom chips to both Motorola and Lenovo for their smartphones. Intel has been virtually shut out of the lucrative smartphone arena, so this is a big step forward for the chipmaker.
It's also a major defensive move against ARM chips, which have dominated the smartphone chip market. And with more and more users depending on their smartphones for a lot of their computing needs, the PC market -- an Intel strong point -- has suffered as well. Read more...
Lenovo gets a jump on Apple in smart TVs
Lenovo on Sunday announced its first smart TV that will recognize voice commands and run Android 4.0 applications, getting a jump over Apple's rumored pursuit of TVs with advanced features.
The K91 Smart TV will provide classic TV functionality, but also include voice control and console-quality gaming capabilities, said Nick Reynolds, director at Lenovo. Users will be able to operate TVs through voice commands instead of the traditional way of using buttons on remote controls.
"This allows the user to tell the remote control what they want to do, such as accessing thousands of TV apps available running on Android 4.0, or accessing LenovoCloud service to download new upgrades, and also access personal multimedia content or interact on social networks," Reynolds said. Read more...
Lenovo planning Windows Phone devices for 2012 debut
Lenovo has been busy working on Android smartphones and tablets, but they’re going to start putting ARM to work on another mobile platform: Windows Phone.
Leaked images first appeared about a month ago, showing what looked like a Lenovo LePhone S2 — an Android device — running Windows Phone 7.5. At the time there had been no official announcement from the company, but LePhone Product Manager Yue Chen has now confirmed that Windows smartphones are definitely in the Lenovo product pipeline. Chen also stated that Lenovo has a “very clear release schedule,” though she didn’t share specifics — only that the first Windows-powered LePhone models will arrive during the second half of 2012. Read more...
Lenovo claim world’s smallest desktop PC with IdeaCentre Q180
The image you see above is Lenovo‘s IdeaCentre Q180 desktop PC. It’s tiny. So tiny in fact, Lenovo is claiming this is the world’s smallest desktop PC.
The Q180 measures just 155 x 192 x 22mm, but inside you’ll find quite a healthy combination of hardware. At its core is an Intel Atom D2700 dual-core processor running at 2.13GHz, coupled with 4GB DDR3 RAM and an AMD Radeon HD6450A GPU with 512MB of dedicated memory. Hard drive sizes go up to 750GB or 128GB for the SSD option. As you’d expect, it runs Windows 7 (Home Premium or Professional).
In terms of connectivity you get 4x USB 2.0 ports, 2x USB 3.0 ports, VGA and HDMI-out, and an 8-in-1 card reader that supports SDXC. As Lenovo intends the Q180 to be sat next to your TV, it also has up to 7.1 surround sound and a wireless multimedia remote that combines keyboard and mouse functionality.
The stand it sits in is also cleverly designed. It can be flipped upside down to support either a complimentary DVD writer or Blu-ray drive sitting next to it while retaining the overall look of the machine. Read more...
Lenovo says new ‘Ultrabook’ thinner than MacBook Air
Lenovo has jumped on Intel's "Ultrabook" bandwagon, announcing a new IdeaPad on Thursday that the company said is thinner than Apple's celebrated MacBook Air.
The IdeaPad U300S has a 13.3-inch display and is the slimmest laptop on the market, said Michael Littler, marketing lead at Lenovo's product group consumer marketing. The U300S is 0.59 inches thick (1.49 centimeters) and weighs 2.2 pounds (0.99 kilograms), Lenovo said. The 13-inch MacBook Air is 0.68 inches thick and weighs 2.96 pounds.
The U300S comes with a choice of low-power Intel processors. It provides up to eight hours of battery life during active use and 30 hours on standby. The starting price is $1,200, and the laptop will start to ship in mid-October, with worldwide availability set for November, Lenovo said. Read more...
Ghosting issues haunt Lenovo ThinkPad X220
Some Lenovo customers are concerned about ghosting on LCD screens in the ThinkPad X220 laptop, in which images temporarily remain fixed on screens, but the company tried to allay fears by saying that images dissipate in a short time and do not damage panels.
The ghosting phenomena -- commonly called image persistence -- are common to LCDs and do not cause images to burn into displays, said Ray Gorman, a Lenovo spokesman, in an email. But some customers have raised concerns, saying the image persistence was prominent, and the issue was not as seemingly normal as projected by Lenovo. Read more...
Hands on: Can the ThinkPad X1 take on the MacBook Air?
Known for its straightforward business laptops, Lenovo is adding a touch of style with its new ThinkPad X1. The ultrathin laptop will be available May 24th for a starting price of $1,399.
With a footprint of 13.2 x 9 in., the ThinkPad X1's jet-black case is 0.4 in. wider than two other 13.3-in. rivals, the Apple MacBook Air and the Dell Vostro V130; at 0.8-in. thick, it is a tenth of an inch thicker than the Air's super-slim profile.
