Having just introduced its IdeaCentre B500 all-in-one, Lenovo today quietly provided a teaser on its Flickr account for a new ThinkCentre counterpart. The lone photo has few details but does confirm built-in speakers, a webcam and a wireless keyboard and mouse combo. Most ThinkCentre PCs are higher-end and are likely to involve Core 2 processors.
Lenovo today sparked life in its IdeaCentre desktops and IdeaPad notebooks by refreshing them for Windows 7 and adding a few completely new models. The IdeaCentre B500 is one of the few all-in-one PCs built for gamers and high-end media use with both a Core 2 Quad, unnamed but dedicated graphics and a built-in JBL speaker system. It also brings a 23-inch 1080p display, 1TB of disk space and a motion remote for an unspecified price.
Lenovo this afternoon put an end to speculation and launched its IdeaCentre Q series of mini desktops as well as its first Windows Home Server. The Q110 is Lenovo's first home nettop and gets NVIDIA's Ion chipset, giving it enough power to decode 1080p in hardware as well as render reasonably modern 3D as well as accelerate some heavily optimized tasks like video encoding. Its other specs aren't known but involve HD video output and should be based on an Intel Atom chip at its $349 price.
Lenovo recently showed its upcoming IdeaCentre C100 all-in-one nettop PC to a group of journalists, revealing a 20-inch screen and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU with either 1GB or 2GB of RAM. Initial versions will have a 20-inch screen and run on the Windows Vista operating system, though later versions will have Windows 7 and a touchscreen. A DVD burner will be integrated, while hard drives will range from 80GB to 160GB units.
Lenovo completed its PC introductions today with a nettop as well as a low-cost, mid-size notebook. The IdeaCentre C300 has a 20-inch display and a DVD burner like many full all-in-ones but uses a 1.6GHz Atom 230 to drive down costs. It has a distinctly fashion-oriented design and comes in a more exotic red as well as black or white.
Lenovo on Wednesday afternoon said it would reorganize itself into major divisions in a bid to improve its focus. At the highest level, the company plans to create a group that handles "mature" markets, such as Japan and North America, as well as a second group that handles "emerging" markets like Lenovo's native China as well as Africa, the Middle East and other areas where PCs are less widespread. Previously, Lenovo had organized itself into much smaller groups based on continents.
Lenovo on Tuesday introduced three new desktops, including its first-ever nettop. At the high end, the IdeaCentre K220 and K230 are both upgrades to the older K210 and add options for faster Core 2 Quad chips as well more storage headroom (up to 1TB), Blu-ray and GeForce 9300M GE integrated video capable of full HD decoding. The PC builder makes each model a trade-off with the K220 having an optional webcam with face recognition but a maximum 4GB of memory; the K230 drops the webcam choice but handles up to 8GB of memory.
After having left the market for several years, Lenovo today returned to home desktops and launched the IdeaCentre K210. The mini-tower is a parallel to the IdeaPad notebooks and borrows design elements from the portables, including face detection security when paired with a BrightEye add-on webcam that clips to most LCDs. The image recognition system also dynamically adjusts brightness based on proximity to the screen.
