Hasta La Gadget!

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z Series has been revealed this week with the Z500 and Z400 bringing up to Genuine Windows 8 Pro to a set of study, thin, and powerful notebooks. Unlike many of the devices revealed this week, the Z Series does not have a touchscreen interface. Instead you’ll be working with an Intelligent Touchpad optimized for Windows 8 and its touch- and gesture-friendly UI.

This line of notebooks works with up to Ivy Brindge, the 3rd Generation Intel Core processor line up to i7, and up to Genuine Windows 8 Pro for your next-generation computing needs. You’ll be choosing between the Z500 with its 15.6-inch backlit LED HD display at 1366 x 768 pixel resolution and the Z400 with its 14-inch backlit LED HD display at 1366 x 768 pixel resolution as well. Both notebooks have 16:9 ratio widescreen displays as well.

Lenovo’s Z Series comes with Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity as well as an integrated DVD reader/writer – this drive also functions as a Blu-ray Disc drive as well. This machine line works with stereo speakers with Dolby Home Theatre v4 audio certification for what the group lets you know is definite Immersive Sound. The Z Series includes Lenovo’s choice OneKey Recovery system for easy data backup and as well as recovery.

You’ll be working with a front-facing 720p HD webcam as well as a Backlit AccuType keyboard that includes individually rounded keys. Lenovo notes that this will allow for comfortable and accurate typing all night and day long. You’ve also got up to NVIDIA GeForce GT 645M 2GB graphics with DirectX 11 under the hood – great stuff! The IdeaPad Z400 will be available November 2012 starting at US $549 while the IdeaPad Z500 will be available September 2012 starting at US $549.

Lenovo IdeaPad Z Series brings thin yet sturdy power to Windows 8 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It appears that Lenovo has decided to take the idea that ultra-thin computers cannot have a disk drive and throw it out the window with their newest Ultrabook, the IdeaPad U510 – and it’s got Windows 8, too! This machine comes in at 0.83-inches thin and has a 15.6-inch HD display along with a full keyboard and – yes indeed – an internal DVD reader/writer and Blu-ray Disc drive that pops out to accept your disks whenever you need it. The U510 will be appearing with a range of colors for its exterior and a fully metallic feel – with real metal!

This unit weighs in at 2.2kg – thats about 4.85 pounds – and is 21mm thick (that’s 0.83 inches, once again), meaning this device is certainly mobile for how powerful it is. Inside you’ll find an Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen) Intel Core i7 processor (if you so choose) as well as either Genuine Windows 8 or Genuine Windows 8 Pro right out of the box. This unit’s display is 1366 x 768 pixels sharp and has a 16:9 aspect ratio as well.

Graphics on the IdeaPad U510 are made possible with NVIDIA GeForce 625M 1GB under the hood, and your memory is going to be ringing up to 8GB HDD storage — 1333/1600 Mhz memory [2 SODIMM slots (1x2GB/2x2GB/1x4GB/1x2GB+1x4GB/2x4GB)]. Right alongside you’ll see your disk drive working with up to 500GB HDD storage – [500GB/750GB/1TB (5400rpm)]; 24/32GB SSD1 cache. For audio you’ve got integrated stereo speakers, two of them at 2W with Dolby Home Theater v4 action backing you up on the inside.

You’ll be working with wi-fi connectivity, 10/100M LAN (RJ-45 connector connected), VGA out, and optional Bluetooth 4.0. Along the sides as well are 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, memory card reader that works with SD and MMC, and a 1/8-inch Stereo Headphone Output & Microphone input combo jack. Lenovo notes that inside you’ll have OneKey Recovery software for easy data backup and recovery as well as remote disable.

Also integrated in the U510 is the ability to wake this Ultrabook up from Sleep mode in just over a second. There’s a front-facing 720p webcam for video chat with software right inside the OS when you start it up – Youcam and Skype amongst them. Also inside are McAfee, Lenovo Support Energy Management to keep you running strong without eating your battery like a pig, and Microsoft Office (everywhere except Japan).

The IdeaPad U510 will be available inside September 2012 starting at US $679 – go grab it! And also stick around for the rest of the Windows 8 wave and Lenovo‘s full IFA 2012 offering too!

Lenovo IdeaPad U510 Ultrabook brings disk tray to the show is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If yesterday was the day Lenovo unveiled its new Android products, today’s the day it turns its attention to Windows 8: in addition to announcing a slew of laptops, the company introduced three IdeaCentre all-in-ones, all slated to go on sale in October when Windows 8 launches. Of these, the flagship is clearly the A520, with its tilting 23-inch screen that can lie nearly flat. Included in that press release, though, you’ll also find details about the B340 / B345, a smaller, more affordable desktop with a less flashy design.

Starting with the A520, it’s the little brother to the A720, which we first saw back at CES. Like the A720, it has a screen that can be tilted between 5 and 90 degrees, except this particular model has a smaller 23-inch display (compared with 27 inches for the A720). That 1080p display is of IPS caliber and supports 10-point multitouch. Under the hood, it can be configured with a Core i7 CPU, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 1TB of HDD storage and an optional Blu-ray player. If you need graphics horsepower, though, you might want to skip ahead to read about those B series models, since the A520 will only be offered with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics.

Indeed, graphics might be a good place to start when we talk about the B340 and B345, since the GPU is the one thing that really separates them. Though both will be offered with a 1GB AMD Radeon HD7470A card, only the B340 will be available with a 2GB NVIDIA GeForce 615. Otherwise, you’ll find the same key specs on both models: a 21.5-inch (1080p) touchscreen display, with a choice of a Core i7 processor or AMD quad-core APU on the inside. The two are also VESA mount-compatible, and can be configured with optional TV tuners.

The A520 will sell for $999 and up, while the B series will start at $599. Again, both will arrive in October, at which point we should be neck-deep in Windows 8 PCs to review.

Continue reading Lenovo announces IdeaCentre A520, B340 and B345 all-in-ones running Windows 8

Filed under: Desktops

Lenovo announces IdeaCentre A520, B340 and B345 all-in-ones running Windows 8 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

We’ve been treated to a number of big reveals during the first two days of IFA 2012, and today Toshiba decided to get in on the action. Not only did it reveal three new camcorders today and a number of new ultrabooks, but it has also announced two new sound bars and a new home cloud storage solution it plans to offer. Read on to find out more about Toshiba’s latest products.

Let’s jump right in with the sound bars, shall we? First up is the Mini 3D Sound Bar with Subwoofer, which sports dimensions of 11.4-inches long, 3.9-inches wide, and 2.8-inches tall. This sound bar is obviously aimed at those who suffer from a lack of space (though the included subwoofer won’t help with that), and it comes with five different ways to connect to your devices, including “two analog connections, two digital connections and Bluetooth wireless technology.” This means that, should you want to, you can connect the speaker wirelessly to a tablet or laptop and listen on the go.

The other sound bar Toshiba revealed today is the 3D Sound Bar SBX1250. This one will likely be a bit larger than the Mini 3D Sound Bar, but it would have to be as it houses six individual speakers. Two of those speakers are optimized for lower frequency to give you a nice bass boost and all six of them sport Sonic Emotion technology “to create an immersive virtual 3D sound field and deliver a total peak power of 100 watts.” Toshiba also says that this sound bar doesn’t require any calibration – just hook it up and you’re good to go.

Toshiba claims that both of these speakers eliminate the need for finding a “sweet spot” for listening and offer excellent sound quality regardless of where you are in the room. Both come with a remote control included in the package, and even though we don’t have a solid release date yet, they should be available sometime in fall 2012. You can grab the Mini 3D Sound Bar for $129.99, while the SBX1250 will set you back $179.99.

Moving right along to Toshiba’s next announcement, the company has revealed Canvio Cloud Storage, which marks its entry into the cloud storage market. It’s being advertised as a cloud storage system for the home, and is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs, Android and iOS devices, Smart TVs (that are connected to the Internet, of course), and DLNA-compatible devices. An app for Windows-based PCs, Android, and iOS allows you to manage all of your saved content, and it has the added bonus of being entirely self-maintained, which means that you don’t have to pay subscription fees to store your stuff (though you have to do all the work).

The Toshiba Canvio Cloud Storage device comes in 2TB ($219.99) and 3TB ($249.99) varieties, and the company has given it a release window of September 2012, meaning it should be arriving soon. So there you have it – Toshiba has a slew of new devices for you to check out, and we’re expecting to hear more about these before long. Stay tuned, and be sure to check out our story timeline below for more on what Toshiba has been up to lately!

Toshiba announces two new sound bars and Canvio Cloud Storage is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hey, check this pair of tablets from Lenovo that were hanging out in the Vodafone booth here at IFA. The slates are actually branded with the carrier’s name as the Vodafone Smart Tab II, the successor to Smart Tabs created last year by handset maker ZTE. The Smart Tab II has quite a nice build quality, and from the front it has a display that looks to match the level we’ve come to expect from the likes of Samsung. The rear, meanwhile, is covered with circular indentations, like a golf ball, with a large Vodafone logo at its center and small gray Levono one along its bottom.

The Smart Tab II comes in both a 7- and 10-inch varieties, which do a pretty good job covering the mainstream tablet spectrum. We reached out to Lenovo to ask whether they might be a rebranding of existing devices, and hear that they apparently have yet to go on sale. We’re hoping to see them here in the US at some point, particularly in the case of the Smart Tab II 7-inch, which adds functionality compared to certain other seven inchers, offering up a rear facing camera — although it’s only two-megapixels in this case.

And while the build quality is quite solid on both, the 10 feels a lot thinner and sleeker in-hand. The larger tablet has 16GB of storage a 1.5GHz dual-core and is running Ice Cream Sandwich. The seven inch tablet is also running Android 4.0 and has 4GB of memory built in, priced at $190. Both devices have built-in GPS. Check out a video of them after the break.

Continue reading Vodafone shows off a pair of Lenovo-made Smart Tabs, we go hands-on (video)

Filed under: Tablets

Vodafone shows off a pair of Lenovo-made Smart Tabs, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments