Toshiba won't bring any new netbooks to the US market, a company executive told Liliputing. This means that the NB510 netbook powered by Intel's Atom N2600 processor introduced at CES won't be sold in the US. Instead, Toshiba America will sell ultrabook computers, which are lighter and thinner, but also more expensive.
Apple led the market in mobile PC shipments during the March quarter, at least when including the iPad, according to preliminary NPD data. The company shipped 17.2 million iPads and MacBooks, representing a 118 percent jump year-over-year, and 22.5 percent marketshare during Q1. About 80 percent of those units were iPads though, whereas the other top sellers succeeded on the basis of notebook shipments.
Lenovo has introduced a range of revised ThinkPad notebooks, each equipped with Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors. Aside from the 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon—dubbed the "lightest 14-inch ultrabook in the industry"—the company also added new models to its L, T, W, and X series.
Lenovo's earlier recall of its ThinkCentre M90z and ThinkCentre M70z all-in-one desktop computers has been expanded to include more units. The voluntary recall -- involving both the manufacturer and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission -- now has a higher number of affected machines, up from 50,500 to 188,000.
Lenovo has of late been increasing its focus on smartphones and tablets, and now the company is backing up its move into the mobile device sector. On Monday, London's Financial Times reports, Lenovo announced that it had begun construction on a major new facility for smartphone and tablet development. The facility, to be built in the Chinese city of Wuhan, will cost around five billion renminbi ($790 million) to complete, and is expected to go online in late 2013.
Lenovo has just detailed its ThinkPad USB 3.0 dock that contains DisplayLink's DL-3900 graphics chip. It connects to PCs with a single USB 3.0 cable and provides five USB 3.0 ports along with dual DVI inputs for adding multiple displays. There is also a single gigabit Ethernet port and an audio output.
Lenovo will build a new production, R&D, and sales facility in Wuhan, China, the PC maker announced on Monday. Called the Lenovo (Wuhan) Industrial Base, the facility will focus on smartphones and tablets while employing several thousand employees. The company will invest about RMB5 billion ($792) over the next five years, with a scheduled opening date of October, 2013.
According to new figures out from analyst firm Canalys, Q1 2012 saw Apple slip from the top spot in the client PC market. Thanks to a boost in shipments, former number one company HP retook its perch atop the market for at least one quarter. The report, though, may signal troubles ahead for PC manufacturers, as it suggests seismic trends at work in the marketplace.
Lenovo is now taking orders for the E430 and E530 models of its ThinkPad Edge notebook series. The E430, starting at $549, features a 14-inch, 1366x768 display, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i3 processor, and a 320GB hard drive, as well as 4GB of RAM. The E530, also starting at $539, features largely the same specs, but comes with a 15.6-inch display. Both notebooks run Windows 7 Home Premium. The E430 is expected to ship on May 11, while the E530 is expected to ship on May 17.
The previously leaked Ivy Bridge-based notebook offerings from Lenovo have now appeared in images on the Internet, as Swiss retailer ThinkpadCenter.ch has published a photo and information on specs for Lenovo's forthcoming ultrabook and tablet. The new Lenovo offerings are expected to be available within the next eight weeks.
A recent Lenovo investment, Eedoo, is drawing criticism for the upcoming launch of China's first mainstream motion gaming system, the CT510. Pitched as a family entertainment system, the system is conspicuously like Microsoft's Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 but is intended more as a general device with HD movie playback, karaoke, and motion-driven exercise apps. At $600, however, it costs more than the $399 US price of Microsoft's most advanced Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle.
Lenovo will begin shipping Think- and Idea-branded PCs with its Enhanced Experience 3 (EE3) software and hardware optimizations for Windows 7 before the end of April. Among other features, EE3's RapidBoot is said to speed up the boot times of hard disk drive-equipped Lenovo computers by 40 percent, on average, compared to typical Windows 7 PCs from others. The average boot time of an EE3-certified Lenovo PC is 24 seconds, while typical Windows 7 PCs with the same kinds of chips boot in an average of 41 seconds, Lenovo stated.
HP's Omni 27, Lenovo's A720 and ASUS' ET27 all-in-one PCs have all been upgraded to Ivy Bridge processors, or Intel's latest Core processors. The HP listing should be updated in a week or two and the 27-inch, 1080p screen doesn't have a touchscreen option, however. Users can make it an HDTV as there is an HDMI input.
Intel on Sunday formally launched its Ivy Bridge processor range. The 22-nanometer chips will, as hinted, start off with 13 quad-core processors in the Core i5 and i7 families, primarily focuses on desktops as well as mid-size and large notebooks. Lower-end Core i3 and i5 chips, as well as ultrabook-friendly low-voltage processors, are coming later in the Spring, Intel said.
Intel has set ambitious targets for the number of ultrabooks it hopes will sell this year, part suppliers understood late Wednesday. Supposed internal roadmap details passed on to Digitimes had between 20 million to 30 million ultrabooks shipping in 2012. That number would double or triple in 2013, according to the claims, as the supply chain would be truly ready for mainstream adoption, such as reinforced plastic to emulate the rigidity of metal without some of the cost.
A newly spotted partner listing (PDF) from Lenovo has shown off some upcoming models from the computer-maker. It includes new ThinkPad and IdeaPad models that weren't leaked earlier, including the ThinkPad T430s. This should be a replacement for the T420s and be a thin and light 14-inch notebook that doesn't quite meet the ultrabook criteria, unlike the T430u.
Taiwan-area contract manufacturers claimed Wednesday that Intel and Microsoft have ambitious aims of reducing the iPad's dominance of tablets. The Digitimes contacts understood the Wintel combination wanted the iPad down from 70 percent share, as it has had in the past, to under 50 percent by mid-2013. For Intel, Lenovo's strength in its native China would be a key factor.
A Lenovo reseller channel update (PDF has inadvertently revealed the company's plans to ship systems based on Intel's Ivy Bridge platform in June. Systems based on Chief River, the mainboard chipset plaform for Ivy Bridge processors, will be on sale for resellers on June 5. These stores won't get their units until September, but it's possible that Lenovo itself will ship PCs to end users sooner.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini during a call discussing his company's latest results revealed that the first phone with one of its company's processors would at last be shipping this week. The executive didn't name the specific phone, but it may be the Lenovo K800, which had originally been promised for May. Other candidates could include the Orange Santa Clara or its near-identical cousin, the Lava Xolo X900.
Intel had relatively lackluster results that showed a dampened PC environment with most of its hope resting in the future. Its revenue was flat from year to year, at $12.9 billion. Intel hadn't divulged its exact PC Client group revenue in 2011 results, but it noted that the mostly desktop- and notebook-focused group's revenue was down seven percent from this past fall, to $8.5 billion.
Lenovo's latest product pages reveal that its ThinkPad L430 and L530 business-series notebooks will become available for purchase this June. While not many specs are currently known about the pair, they are believed to be MIL-SPEC compliant and have long battery lives. They are also environmentally-friendly, with recycled materials used in their construction.
Intel may move up the launch of its Ivy Bridge processors by nearly a week. Notebook builders claimed early Thursday to Digitimes that the formal release would occur April 23, six days earlier than widely leaked. Why wasn't mentioned, but it would imply better supply than anticipated.
Both Gartner and IDC provided early estimates of winter 2012 market share that showed Apple making big strides in the US. The two gave the Mac a tentative share of 10 or 10.6 percent, in either case enough to put it in third place. Both saw rapidly falling Acer and Toshiba below Apple in share.
Intel China chairman Sean Maloney at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing on Wednesday said many Intel-based tablets with Windows 8 are coming before year's end. He went on to say the company is working with 10 Chinese and global hardware makers on such tablets, but didn't name them. The most likely candidate chip to power the tablets is the Atom Z2460, also dubbed Medfield internally.
Lenovo's Intel-powered K800 (hands-on) is expected to arrive in North America by the end of May, according to Intel's China Chairman, Sean Maloney. The K800 is the first smartphone to run Intel's 1.6GHz Atom Medfield processor, although it may launch with an x86-compatible variant of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), instead of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Google has developed an x86-compatible version of ICS, although it is not known whether it will arrive in time on the K800 for its US launch.
Lenovo UK has provided firm pricing for its soon to be released crossover IdeaPad Yoga. The entry level Core i5 powered tablet/ultrabook will hit stores at £1,199 ($1,900 USD), while a higher-end Core i7 equipped version will be priced at £1,499 ($2,380 USD). When the company let us test the Yoga at CES back in January, the device carried a lone American starting price of $1,199.
The Lenovo IdeaTab S2109 tablet that went through FCC testing last month has now showed up in a very official-looking YouTube video. The 9.7-inch tablet's specs are revealed and possibly confirmed in the video, including its 9.7-inch, 1024x768 IPS LCD display. A stock Android 4.0 OS is onboard, and the tablet is just 8.9mm (0.35in) thick.
An uncommon study from Stenvall Sköld & Company has shown that much of Apple's mobile device share in China is disproportionately located in its urban areas. Based both on its own device analysis and research from local firm Umeng, it saw the distribution of 21 million iOS devices understandably skewed towards those provinces with the most urbanized populations. The highest concentration at 13.4 percent wasn't in one of the biggest cities but instead Guangdong province, home to Shenzhen and the Foxconn plants that make most of the iPads and iPhones for the world.
Lenovo, traditionally a PC maker, will begin accepting pre-orders for its range of smart TVs in China as soon as April 10, PCWorld learned. A dedicated website has already been set up, and the flagship model will be the 55-inch K91 Android Smart TV we had a chance to check out at CES. It alone gets a 240Hz LED panel with 3D capability.
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) settled its lawsuit over Wi-Fi patents on Monday. The deal with US carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, as well as PC designers Acer, Lenovo, and Sony, was worth $220 million in local currency, or $229 million US. CSIRO hadn't ruled out more patent lawsuits, although it didn't file for patents in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) area or the wider Latin America area.
A pair of rumors have four major Windows PC builders coming back after a hard 2011. Acer and ASUS were said by Digitimes to be both avoiding the traditional post-holiday slump. ASUS was purportedly seeing a PC shipment drop of 10 percent, or half as much as it had expected, while Acer was not only expected to match the roughly six million PCs shipped in the fall but possibly exceed the amount, up to 6.2 million.
Apple's new iPad edged closer to one of its largest potential audiences Monday after the China Quality Certification Center quietly gave its approval last week. The Wi-Fi version has been given China Compulsory Certification and can go on sale as soon as Apple decides it's ready. Cellular versions will still need a separate license to reach the country.
NVIDIA has paired up the GeForce GTX 680 launched Thursday with its first notebook graphics sharing the same Kepler architecture. The GeForce GT 640M LE, GT 640M, GT 650M, and GTX 660M all use the new 28-nanometer building process both to be smaller and cooler than their ancestors as well as up the core count and clock speeds. They peak at 384 cores on the 640M, 650M and 660M and up to either 735MHz or 850MHz on the 660M, depending on whether or not it's using GDDR5 or DDR3 memory.
Microsoft's Windows 8 ARM tablet rollout has had a rough schedule possibly outlined in a rumor late Tuesday. Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo were said by Digitimes' part supplier contacts to be the ones hand-picked for the October release. The Nokia tablet might follow a month later, in November.
The Lenovo ThinkCentre M92z stealth all-in-one has leaked ahead of its official unveiling. Although there are scant details about its hardware, what is obvious is that the company has adopted ‘monitor look’ where the user only sees a monitor with the PC components built-in behind the display. According to The Verge, the AIO will come in 20- and 23-inch versions, run Intel Ivy Bridge-based processors, include discrete graphics and include Windows 8-ready capacitive touchscreens.
Lenovo's ThinkPad Edge E430 and E530 may bring in an unwelcome attempt to demand first-party components. A leak has pointed The Verge to Lenovo implementing Battery Safeguard, a measure that would require an authentication chip on a battery for it to work. The method would outright ban the use of third-party batteries short of Lenovo licensing the technology out.
Lenovo could be the vanguard for Microsoft's Windows 8 launch, based on details that may have surfaced Thursday. The company supposedly intends to be the "very first" with a Windows 8 tablet and was anticipating launching simultaneously with an OS release in October, The Verge said. Only an Intel chip was mentioned as far as details, although this implied it might be the IdeaPad Yoga we tried at CES.
PC maker Lenovo has teamed up with SugarSync to formally launch Lenovo Cloud Storage on computers and tablets. It will allow Lenovo's users to store or back up as much as 5GB of their documents, photos, and other files in the cloud rather than locally. Anything over 5GB needs to be paid for.
A follow-up study through ChangeWave has shown that corporate uptake of iPads was only climbing higher in February despite more concerted attempts from Android makers. Of those hoping to buy tablets in the spring, he number of companies looking to buy the iPad shot from 77 percent in November to a new high of 84 percent just last month. Without exception, every Android tablet designer's share of tablet interest declined, with none crossing into double digits.
An FCC filing has given away Lenovo's plans for a previously unannounced tablet that would show the company trying to take on the iPad more directly. The IdeaTab S2109 would have a 9.7-inch, IPS-based, 4:3 ratio display like its Apple counterpart, although it's more likely to have the 1024x768 screen of the iPad 2 than an exotic greater-than-HD panel. Its design would be unusually power-thirsty: the FCC labeling would point to a 12.5W power, or more than the 10W maximum carried by most tablets.
An unusually ambitious patent lawsuit filed late last week, and published Monday, is hoping to profit from the rest of the industry's work. Largely unknown NovelPoint Security LLC has sued 35 mostly major companies over two patents for a "method for limiting computer access to peripheral devices" and a "network security system allowing access" based on master tokens. The sweeping nature of the patent includes virtually every major PC and electronics builder, including Acer, Apple, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba.
Gartner on Sunday revealed the extent to which Apple's share of China's smartphones trailed others. Although Apple leads worldwide, it sat at 7.5 percent, or fifth place, in China's sphere. Samsung, in the lead at 24.3 percent, had over three times as much share.
Intel stated Thursday to PCWorld that its Thunderbolt implementation would get a faster back infrastructure with its Ivy Bridge processor era. New Thunderbolt chipsets will use PCI Express 3.0 as its interface with the system instead of PCIe 2.0, boosting the bandwidth from five gigatransfers per second to eight. The upgrade won't change the 10Gbps external speed but will reduce any bottlenecks past the initial interface.
Some of Lenovo's ThinkCentre M90z and ThinkCentre M70z all-in-one desktop computers are being voluntarily recalled by the maker and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. About 50,500 units are affected, due to a possible fire hazard from an overheating internal power supply component. Owners are being urged to stop using the affected PCs and are warned that it's illegal to resell or try to resell a recalled product.
Intel ended one of the longest waits for one of its processors in recent memory on Tuesday by launching and detailing the Xeon E5-2600. Its mid-range server and workstation chip is a superset of the much newer Sandy Bridge-E architecture and can carry a full eight cores (up from six) and handle a much larger 768GB memory ceiling. The extra cores, along with a shrink from 45 to 32 nanometers and new AVX support, should make it about 80 percent faster than the Xeon 5600 it replaces.
Lenovo on Friday stopped selling netbooks through its own website. The models that were depleted won't be replaced in the web store "in the near future," the computer maker's rep revealed. Whether the netbooks will continue to be sold in retail stores hasn't been detailed.
Repeated talk of Intel delayng Ivy Bridge to June was supported by a conversation with executive VP Sean Maloney. HE told the FT that it had been moved back eight to ten weeks, from April to June. Contrary to some claims, though, it wasn't due to low demand but rather out of time getting the 22-nanometer chip manufacturing process up to speed.
Apple was the lead mobile PC vendor in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the rest of the year, at least when including tablets, an NPD DisplaySearch report shows. The company shipped just under 23.4 million MacBooks and iPads in the fourth quarter, and more than 62.8 million for the entire year. NPD observes, though, that almost 80 percent of Apple's numbers were iPads, estimated at 18.7 million in Q4, and 48.4 million for the whole year.
Lenovo has climbed to the top of Rescuecom's computer reliability ratings for the beginning of 2012, achieving a significantly higher score than its competitors. Apple has fallen to fourth in the lineup, despite maintaining a stronger rating in past years and achieving a surge in overall market share, with a score that is just over half of Lenovo's rating.
China Telecom on Tuesday local time confirmed its plans to carry the iPhone 4S. The phone will be available on March 9 with preorders beginning a week earlier, on March 2. Prices will start out at free on a contract for the 16GB iPhone 4S.
