CES 2015: Lenovo Innovation

I love the Consumer Electronics Show, it takes place every year during the first week of January in Las Vegas.  It’s a week-long trip I look forward to every year…and throughout the year.  Yes, there are 20,000 new products introduced every year at CES and it’s always fun to see what is new.  However, there are a few companies that I always visit every year because they understand innovation and work to improve the functionality of their products each year to bring fun relative features to to their already great products.

One such company is Lenovo.  Lenovo is the largest PC maker in the world.  The Thinkpad is their brand.

Although Lenovo makes a large array of computers, laptops, tablets, phones, and accessories, there are a few Lenovo brands that are my favorites that I’d like to bring to your attention.  Lenovo makes three main families of tablets and laptops.  Flex is Lenovo’s economical brand, it gives people the opportunity to buy a well-made Lenovo product at a reasonable price.

Yoga is a more familiar brand, thanks to it’s innovative ability to be position as a laptop, tablet, or tent.  It’s also famous thanks to Ashton Kutcher’s involvement with the design and promotion of the brand.

The last brand, and most known the world over is the Thinkpad.  A powerful workhorse, the Thinkpad is the gold standard in business.  For this article, we will focus on Lenovo innovation featuring the Flex and Yoga brands.

Flex

Lenovo’s Flex brand represents their lower cost tablets and laptops, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feature some of the same innovation found in the Yoga series.  With the introduction of the Lenovo Flex 3, their laptop line now features a unique 360 degree hinge.  So now, similar to the Yoga line, the Flex laptop can transition easily from Laptop to Stand to Tent (which is great for viewing movies).

The FLEX 3 comes in a 14 and 15 inch size featuring a 10-point multi-touch Windows 8.1 display.  Flex laptops feature Dobly Home Theater speakers for immersive sound.

The value-line Flex series starts at $399 for the 11-inch, the 14-inch starts at $549, and the 15-inch starts $579.  Launch date will be in May.

Yoga

I am a Yoga lover, owning both the Yoga tablet and Yoga 2 Pro laptop.  Besides my desktop PC and my phone, these two gadgets are my most favorite tools to use.  Why?  I love the thoughtfulness put into these products that make them functional to fit into my life.

The Yoga tablet has a built-in stand that allows me to easily prop up the tablet so I don’t have to hold it.  And the Yoga 2 Pro laptop is fast, lightweight, orange (just love the color!), and flexible.  I use it mostly in laptop mode but also use the Tent feature when watching videos.

So, now with the introduction of the Yoga 2 Tablet and Yoga 3 laptop, what has changed?

Yoga 2 Tablets

The Yoga 2 Tablets come in three sizes, a 8 inch, 10 inch, and 13.3 Pro inch size.  The new Yoga 2 Tablets feature four methods to use your Yoga 2 – Stand, Hold, Tilt, or the new feature Hang!  You see, there is a large-spaced hole in the built-in stand that you can hang the tablet up on something such as a nail on the wall or a cord with a picture hangar on the back of one of the front seats of the car.

The Yoga 2 Tablets come with Wolfson Master Hi-Fi noise reduction and Dolby audio front facing speakers and boasts an 18 hour battery life, due to the laptop battery hidden in its stand.

One very innovative feature found in the 13.3 Pro size is a built-in projector!  You can easily project a picture slide show, web page, Netflix movies, movies you’ve taken yourself, and more onto a wall or ceiling, up to 50 inches in size!  Can you imagine?  Now you don’t have to all go into the TV room or to your PC to watch videos, you can see them from the ceiling of your kids’ rooms!  Love it!

The Yoga 2 Tablet 8 inch features the new Lenovo AnyPen Technology which allows you to use any pen or pencil to write notes or create drawings on your tablet.

Best yet, the Lenovo Yoga 2 tablets are very reasonably priced.  The 8-inch Yoga 2 Tablet is $299, the 10-inch is $249, and the projector 13.3 inch Pro is just $499.

 Yoga 3 Laptops

The Yoga 3 laptops are available in the 11 inch and now a 14 inch model with a backlit screen.  Both models are super thin, measuring 18.3mm or less.  The 11 inch Yoga 3 weighs in at just 2.42 lbs., it is really light.

The hinge on both models has been updated with a newly designed hinge that allows the laptop to lie flat completely at 180 degrees.  Believe it or not, the new hinge incorporates 900 pieces to give it its flexibility.  Both laptops incorporate stereo speakers with Waves audio for a crisp clear sound.

The Yoga 3 laptops are available in Clementine Orange, Platinum Silver, the new Chalk White or Ebony Black.  The YOGA 3 11-in and 14-in will be available in March with models starting at $799 and $979.

Lenovo B50 3D Camera AIO

Though neither a Flex or Yoga brand, the Lenovo B50 3D All-in-One PC is worth mentioning.  Its 23.8-inch edge-to-edge display screen is beautiful, offering 10-point multi-touch and a minimum of the Intel Core i5 processor with NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics to minimize motion lag.

What makes the Lenovo B50 3D Camera AIO so unique is its built-in camera, which is Intel’s RealSense TM depth-sensing 3D camera.  The 3D camera allows for precise pc control through hand gestures and face expressions.  They have developed a number of games that allow you to get into the action on your PC.

Here’s a game we played where you help the little chickens get from one area to another, simply by placing my hand as a “bridge” for them to be transported to the next area.  They crawl right onto your computer image hand.  If you move your hand wrong, they’d all tumble down.  It was really impressive and fun.

The Lenovo B50 3D Camera AIO also features great Dolby Home Theater sound to make watching your videos more enjoyable.  No price has been set yet for the Lenovo B50 3D Camera AIO.

Lenovo innovation continues to up the ante for fun and productive features on their devices.  They focus on making their devices lighter, more productive, and most conducive to the way we are using our laptops and tablets.  I took my Yoga 2 Pro laptop with me to CES and carried it around all day in my backpack.  I never would have done that with any other laptop I’ve owned because they are so heavy.  And the new Yoga 3 is even lighter!  Love it!