Hasta La Gadget!

After two years in development, Lenovo Constant Connect is finally here. A groundbreaking new tie-up between Lenovo and RIM has led to the creation of a $150 54mm ExpressCard — which slots into any ThinkPad from around Summer ’08 onward — and automatically pulls down any email sent to your BlackBerry via Bluetooth, even if the laptop is completely powered down. The idea here is to always have your most recent inbox available within eight seconds of opening your machine, and thanks to the card’s dedicated Bluetooth radio and 500MB of inbuilt storage, it can pull down and send out emails so long as the card and your ‘Berry are within 30 feet or so from one another. Aside from needing an ExpressCard slot, you’ll also need a handset with OS 4.2 or higher. It’s designed to work with Exchange, Outlook, POP and Gmail, with Lotus Notes support coming in 2H 2009; as for availability, the card will be available through Lenovo and its partners in early Q2 here in America, while those elsewhere in the world will have to wait until the latter half of the year. Full release and demo video is after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo Constant Connect brings BlackBerry email to ThinkPads automatically

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Peripherals

Lenovo Constant Connect brings BlackBerry email to ThinkPads automatically originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My guess is that, in light of this on-going economic crisis, 2009 will likely prove itself a banner year for executive shakeups. Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo is starting at the top, replacing the head of its American wing, William J. Amelio.

A former Dell executive, Amelio signed a three-year contract with the company back in 2005. During his tenure with Lenovo, the company slipped to fourth place in the world PC market, behind Acer.

Amelio’s CEO spot will be filled by current chairman, Yang Yuanqing. Yuanqing’s position, in turn will be filled by the company’s founder, Liu Chuanzhi.

Lenovo’s 15.4-inch IdeaPad Y530 has been around the block a time or two, but if you’ve been putting off a buy as you wait for someone to test this puppy out good-fashion, your day has arrived. The benchmarking fiends over at HotHardware have abused (in a good way, of course) the Y530 in pretty much every way possible, even straining the Core 2 Duo CPU and the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M to see how they fared in gaming scenarios. Critics were particularly wowed by the display’s crispness and overall stability of the machine — not once during the gauntlet of tests did this bugger crash or weep under pressure. Of course, serious gamers should probably look elsewhere, but those scouting a do-it-all laptop at a sub-$1,000 price point should definitely dive into the read link below.

Filed under: Laptops

Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 tested in every way imaginable originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo’s W700ds stands out from the rest in an incredibly crowded laptop market — and not just because it’s bigger than almost any two of its competitors combined. It’s one of the very few laptops to offer an auxiliary display and has room for a full number pad and an integrated tablet to boot. With those two screens and that pop-out stylus it’s a little bit like a Nintendo DS that entered the Major Leagues and spent a few decades on the juice chasing home run records — but, being a Lenovo, this luggable has little interest in games. It’s powerful and very functional, but bulky dimensions and a similarly unwieldy price tag leave it with two major handicaps to overcome.

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds laptop review: two screens of fury in one hefty package

Filed under: Laptops

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds laptop review: two screens of fury in one hefty package originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Forgive us, but we just can’t get jazzed about a trio of Lenovo desktops that offer up nothing innovative whatsoever. Sure, the IdeaCentre K220 may pack a Core 2 Quad CPU, upwards of 4GB of DDR3 RAM and an optional Blu-ray drive, but that’s nothing we couldn’t slap together ourselves in a few minutes. The K230 ups the ante a bit with room for 8GB of memory and Windows Vista 64-bit, while the lower-end H200 (shown above) becomes Lenovo’s first desktop with an Atom under the hood. All three machines will be available this month starting at $449, $499 and $399.99 (bundled with the ThinkVision L195 monitor), in order of mention.

[Via InformationWeek]

Filed under: Desktops

Lenovo trots out new trifecta of unexciting desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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