News

  • Home > News

        Lenovo spins nettop, 23-inch touchscreen PC

        Jonathan Angel | Date: May 11, 2010 | Comments: 1


        Amidst a bevy of new consumer PCs, Lenovo announced an all-in-one device with a SAW (surface acoustic wave) touchscreen, and a Nvidia Ion-equipped "nettop" that's said to be just 0.82 inches wide. The IdeaCentre A700 has a 23-inch "full HD screen" and up to 2TB of storage, while the "tiny as a book" IdeaCentre Q150 is available with optional discrete graphics, the company says.

        Lenovo's IdeaCentre A700 appears to be the first consumer PC that provides the option of a SAW (surface acoustic wave) screen. Previously the province of specialized panel PCs and point-of-sale computers, SAW employs ultrasonic waves that pass over a device's all-glass screen.

        Lenovo's IdeaCentre A700
        (Click to enlarge)

        Lenovo presumably went with SAW to provide multitouch capabilities on the IdeaCentre A700's massive, 23-inch screen. The device is an upgrade to the manufacturer's 21.5-inch IdeaCentre A600, which made its debut earlier this year with a 21.5-inch display.

        The IdeaCentre A600 topped out with a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 processor, but Lenovo says the A700 will offer a choice of CPUs ranging up to Intel's Core i7, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and up to 2TB of disk storage, the company adds.

        The A600, touted as including "just about every home entertainment feature you can think of," will offer HDMI in/out support, JBL-designed speakers, and DirectX 11 graphics, according to Lenovo. The device will also include a 3-in-1 mouse that functions as a standard mouse, an air mouse/pointer, and a motion-drive games controller, the company says.

        The IdeaCentre Q150 "nettop," meanwhile, is an upgrade to the IdeaCentre Q100 and Q110, and presumably moves up from the Atom 230 processor originally featured to Intel's newer D410, though Lenovo didn't say. The device will be optionally available with an Nvidia Ion GPU (graphics processing unit) with 512MB of RAM, providing "smooth" 1080p video via an onboard HDMI output, the company says.


        Lenovo's IdeaCentre Q150 and optional remote

        According to Lenovo, the IdeaCentre Q150 will be available with the unusually styled keyboard/trackball accessory pictured above right. This device makes it "easy to multitask between emails, web browsing, and video playback," the company claims.

        Further information

        Lenovo said the IdeaCentre A700 and Q150 will be available at the end of June, for prices starting at $999 and $249, respectively. Product pages may be found for the A700 here and Q150 here.

        Related stories: