Fresh ‘Ideas’ Are Alive At Lenovo With New ideapad And ThinkPad Notebooks And Convertibles

Lenovo is the world’s number one PC maker, and the Chinese OEM plans on keeping that honor for years to come. In an effort to stay ahead of the competition and respond to ever-changing customer tastes, Lenovo has announced a sweeping revamp of numerous products across its ideapad and YOGA product lines, all of which come preloaded with Windows 10 (or the older Windows 7 if you prefer).

First up is a new addition to Lenovo’s expansive convertible family: the ideapad MIIX 700. This device features a spacious 12-inch display along with Intel’s newly announced, Skylake-based Core m7 processors. The 2-in-1 convertible features Lenovo’s jewel-like dual watchband hinges, which allows the device to easily glide from laptop to stand to tablet modes.

ideapad MIIX 700

Moving on, the ideapad 500 can handle Intel’s hulking sixth generation Core i7 processor or up to an AMD FX-8800P APU paired with up to 16GB of DDR3L memory. Consumers can choose from either the integrated Intel HD Graphics or opt for a discrete AMD Radeon R7 M360 which can be paired with either a 14-inch 15.6-inch FHD (1920x1080) display. Storage options include either a 1TB HDD, a 1TB SSHD, or a 128GB SSD, while Intel’s RealSense 3D Camera is optional on models with an Intel processor.

ideapad 300S

But it doesn’t end there. There’s the ideapad 300 series which is available with sixth generation Intel core processors and three screen sizes: 14-, 15.6- or 17.3-inches — the former two have screen resolutions of 1920x1080 while the latter has a resolution of 1600x900. Then there’s the ideapad 300S which is available in both a 14-inch (1920x080) display and an 11.6-inch (1366x768) display. And there’s also an ideapad 500S which has a 15.6-inch 1920x1080 display.

Rounding out the ideapad family is the 100S series, which is available in 11.6- and 14-inch form-factors (both with 1366x768 displays). Under the hood you’ll find an Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core processor with support for up to 4GB of memory. To complicate matters further, there’s also an 11.6-inch Chromebook 100S with largely the same hardware specs as its Windows 10-equipped counterpart.

Moving past the ideapad lineup, there are also two additions to the ThinkPad family: the YOGA 260 and YOGA 460. The ThinkPad YOGA 260 is billed as the world’s lightest 12.5-inch convertible notebooks, weighing in at just 2.9 pounds. The ThinkPad YOGA 260 can be equipped with either a 1366x768 or a 1920x1080 display. The ThinkPad YOGA 460, on the other hand, can be had with a 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 display. Both machines come equipped with Intel’s sixth generation Core processor (up to a Core i7). In addition, both the ThinkPad YOGA 260 and YOGA 460 support optional LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) connectivity.

ThinkPad YOGA 260

The ideapad MIIX 700 starts at $799 and will be available in November. The ideapad 300 starts from $399, while the ideapad 500 starts from $499 — all will be available stating in October. The ideapad 300S starts from $249 and the ideapad 500S starts at $499 — both, likewise, are available in October. The ideapad 100S starts at $189 while its Chromebook 100S counterpart starts slightly lower at $179 — again, expect October availability for these two machines. The ThinkPad YOGA 260 and YOGA 460 are priced at $949 and $1,049 respectively and will be available starting in November and January 2016 respectively.

Needless to say, it’s an exhaustive lineup of notebooks that is incredibly hard to keep track of. When glancing over Lenovo’s new product portfolio, I couldn’t help but think back to a statement made by Lenovo’s CEO with regards to the company’s fiscal Q1 earnings. “We will have a much simpler, more streamlined product portfolio with a reduced number of clearly differentiated models,” remarked Yuanqing Yang.

That philosophy can’t arrive soon enough.