TECH company Lenovo took to the stage in a dedicated event at the IFA 2019 trade show in Berlin last week to give journalists and industry members a first look at the new product range on its way.
While there wasn’t a lot there specifically to appeal to gamers, the company did announce new additions to the “Yoga” family of laptops (so called because the screen can be folded over to essentially turn the device into a tablet PC).
Developed as part of Intel’s ambitious Project Athena, the newly announced 14” Yoga C940 and Yoga S740 feature “innovative and adaptable smart features” including Super Resolution to upscale video up to FHD 1080p on Windows Media Player 3, AI-enhanced intelligent cooling (supposed to increase battery life by optimising when the fan is used) as well as ‘Modern Standby’, enabling Yoga laptops to undertake background tasks like receiving emails while in sleep mode, as well as instantly waking from sleep mode much like a smartphone.
British, North American and German versions of the units will feature Amazon Alexa integration, but at this stage the Australian units are understood to be lacking this.
The new Yoga range are set for an October-November 2019 launch in Australia, RRP will range from AUD$1699 on the 13” Yoga C640 to AUD$2999 on the 14” Yoga C940.
The company is also adding to its range of ThinkBook business laptops with the ThinkBook 14 and ThinkBook 15. Both feature Intel i7 processors, 4GB of RAM, dedicated graphics, and long battery lives – said to be around the 12 hour mark. The laptops are set for a November release but without an Australian RRP at present.
Two monitors were also shown at the launch, being the Q27q and the Q24i.
The Q27q is a 27” QHD ultra-slim monitor with a 2560 x 1440 display, 6.9mm width and 75Hz refresh with 4ms response; while the Q24i is a 1920×1080 display with the same slimness, refresh and response times.
Both units appear to have been designed for people who value the aesthetics of their work/creative space and are set for an October launch with RRPs of AUD$399 for the Q27q and AUD$249 for the Q24i.
The Lenovo Yoga Smart Tablet with the Google Assistant that was announced seem to do pretty much exactly what it said on the tin; it’s set for an October release with an RRP of AUD$499 and features a 10” display, a kickstand, and speakers built into the bottom sides of the unit.
The company also showed off an AR game, Marvel Dimension of Heroes, which requires a proprietary AR goggle set and isn’t getting an Australian release at this stage, as well as a particularly impressive mobile phone – the Motorola Moto One Zoom, which has five cameras (four on the back including 48 MP wide angle, an 8MP with 3x optical zoom, a 16MP ultrawide angle and a 5Mp camera with depth sensor, plus a 25MP selfie camera) as well as 128MB internal memory, 4GB RAM and a 4000mAh battery. Sadly, there’s no release date or pricing for Australia, but if that changes we’ll let you know.
Royce Wilson attended IFA 2019 as a guest of Intel
