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CHINESE MANUFACTURER Lenovo will be the first manufacturer to ship a smartphone with Intel’s Medfield processor, a surprise considering the firm’s lack of pedigree in the handheld market.

The K800 is a large high-end device that sports an angular frame, much like Lenovo’s ThinkPad range. One of the best features is the 4.5in display with a resolution of 1280×720. We found the video playback was very vibrant and the screen was a good size.

With a thickness of 10mm, the device appears quite chunky compared to other handsets on the market such as the Samsung Galaxy S II (8.5mm) and the forthcoming Huawei Ascend PS 1 (6.68mm).

The K800 was running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with a unique overlay. On first glance it didn’t even look like the device was running Android. However, we found this to be quite user friendly. Lenovo does expect to upgrade the device to Ice Cream Sandwich.

On the home screen there are shortcuts that allow you to access calls, messages, IMs and mails. In the middle is an icon to view contacts. It’s not too fancy, and there are options to customise this so we like it. However, questions will remain over how the overlay will impact battery performance. From experience we have seen overlays such as HTC Sense drain a lot of juice.

Performance of the device was very snappy with the Intel Atom Medfield chip running at 1.6GHz and providing more than enough grunt to power applications.

Lenovo provides 16GB of internal memory, but it looks like there wil not be any micro SD support.

It remains to be seen whether the K800 will make it to western markets. We can’t help but feel that Intel’s reference smartphone is more likely to make an appearance in the UK than this device.

Tablets can be found everywhere at CES, and not just with the manufacturers—it’s hard to swing a mouse by the cord without hitting someone starting at their tablet. Like all the major OEMs, Lenovo is ready to throw its hat into the tablet ring, and they had numerous new tablets on display. The IdeaTab S2110 was one of the more interesting tablets on hand, sporting a new dual-core Qualcomm 1.5GHz 8x60a/8960 “Krait” processor, the follow up to Qualcomm’s successful Scorpion architecture. (Recall that unlike many ARM licensees, Qualcomm licenses the instruction set with the right to make their own architecture; Scorpion was roughly their equivalent to the Cortex-A8, and Krait is their riff on the Cortex-A9.)

We didn’t have a chance to run any benchmarks, but the S2110 was shown running Ice Cream Sandwich. Other than the SoC, the S2110 is very similar to the original ASUS Eee Pad Transformer; it’s a tablet with a keyboard dock that includes additional battery power. Build quality was more in line with the original Transformer as opposed to the new Eee Prime Transformer, and Lenovo quotes battery life of up to 24 hours with the keyboard dock.

Another tablet being shown is the IdeaTab K2010, also running ICS but this time with a Tegra 3 SoC. There’s no keyboard dock this time, but the K2010 does offer full size USB, HDMI, and SD card slots. It also has four speakers located around the display bezel. Not to be outdone by the other SoCs, Intel also has a showing at Lenovo with the K2110, once more running ICS. The interesting thing is that this is the first time we’ve seen ICS running on an x86 platform, with the Atom Z2460 filling the processor role. Other tablets on display used a variety of SoCs and came in screen sizes ranging from 5” to 10”, but the above three were arguably the most interesting of the bunch.

Gallery: Lenovo IdeaTabs Shown Off with Krait, Tegra 3, and Atom

CHINESE PC MAKER Lenovo has announced its next Ultrabook class laptop prior to next week’s consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas.

The T430u Ultrabook is Lenovo’s follow-on to the U300s, which it announced in September. The T430u will be on show at CES next week and will be available in the third quarter in the UK with a starting price of £545.

“The T430u Ultrabook represents the next generation in thin and light computing,” said Dilip Bhatia, vice president of Thinkpad at Lenovo. “From small businesses that literally live their life on the road to corporate professionals working in a managed environment, these new crossover laptops fundamentally change the way people think about mobile computing technology.”

Like all Ultrabooks the laptop will come in a slim and light design at 20.3mm thick and less than 1.8kg. It will have a matte finish with an aluminium cover and will be available with a 14in high definition screen.

The T430u will come with an unknown Intel processor. The words “third generation” were mentioned in the pre-CES briefing we attended but Lenovo has not confirmed whether its Ultrabook or other laptops will have Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors. The latter seems more likely.

It will come with an optional Nvidia graphics card and up to 1TB of disk storage or a solid state disk (SSD). Lenovo touts a battery life of up to six hours and features such as quick resume and fast boot. It will also be the first Ultrabook with a DVD drive according to the firm.

The Lenovo T430u will have to compete with other recent entries to the Ultrabook category such as Toshiba’s Z830 and Asus’ Zenbook UX31E. We expect Ultrabooks to make a large showing at this year’s CES. µ

CHINESE HARDWARE VENDOR Lenovo has unveiled not one but two smartphones, the Lephone K2 and an unnamed Windows Phone 7.5 Mango device.

The Lephone K2 is the Android device and will come with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, not Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Details are very light on Windows alternative, apart from that it will run Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and tip up in the second half of next year, according to PC Mag.

It is unclear whether either device will tip up outside of China, but that’s likely the case. The Lephone K2 will have a Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core processor and a 4.3in in-plane switching (IPS) display, according to Engadget.

Other specifications for the Android flavoured smartphone include 1GB of RAM, 1GB of internal storage and an 8MP rear facing camera. Lenovo leaked a slightly larger device with a 5in screen last week, which will be a tablet crossed with a phone called the Ideapad. µ

CHINESE COMPUTER COMPANY Lenovo has teamed up with Qualcomm to offer multi-carrier capability to its Thinkpad tablet, which Lenovo claims makes it the first Android tablet to feature the technology.

The Thinkpad will now come with an option to include Qualcomm’s Gobi 3000 wireless internet chip, which will allow users to connect to any of the major mobile broadband carriers in the US without the need to change hardware.

The chip will also support global roaming on the EVDO (Evolution-Data Optimized) and HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) networks.

The technology won’t be a major selling point for those who don’t travel much, but given the portability of tablets more people will be taking them on holidays and business trips and will want 3G access.

“Our Gobi 3000 solution was designed to simplify 3G connectivity for mobile computing devices, like Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet,” said Fram Akiki, senior director of product management at Qualcomm. “With Gobi, Enterprise IT departments have the flexibility to purchase 3G-enabled tablets, deploy to offices around the world, then allow each region to provision on an as-needed basis to their preferred carrier.”

We checked the Lenovo online store and found that only the 32GB and 64GB versions offer the Gobi chip, leaving those interested in the 16GB model out of the loop. It also bumps the price up by 0, so you will have to weigh up how often you travel with your tablet before making the investment.

This feature is not yet available for UK or European carriers, but it is likely only a matter of time until users will be able to switch from one network to another as they travel across Europe. µ

In the next few months, thin-and-light laptops bearing Intel's Ultrabook moniker are going to begin showing up in the marketplace, and Lenovo revealed their first entry today: The IdeaPad U300s.

The U300s promises Sandy Bridge ULV processors (a 1.6 GHz Core i5-2457M and a 1.8 GHz Core i7-2677M are mentioned in the spec sheet), up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, up to a 256GB SSD, a 13.3" 1366×768 display, a 720p webcam, and up to 8 hours of battery life in a 2.9-pound 0.6-inch thick package. With the exception of screen resolution, it's roughly in 13" MacBook Air territory, but it also includes an HDMI port, a built-in gigabit ethernet port (wi-fi and bluetooth are a given), and one USB 3.0 port (along with one USB 2.0 port) – depending on your usage patterns, this port layout may be more useful to you than the Air's Thunderbolt port.

The U300s starts at ,199, and will be available in November in two colors, the business-friendly Graphite Gray and the very distinctive Clementine Orange.

Source: Lenovo

Today Lenovo brings thin and Sandy Bridge to your desks and your laps. Leaked last month, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 will make a strong case for itself to corporate road warriors while also packing some features that might appeal to consumers. Lenovo also has the newly revealed ThinkCentre Edge 91z, which introduces the Edge aesthetic to the ThinkCentre all-in-one (AIO) line. The ThinkCentre's space-saving form factor and mix of desktop and mobile components should appeal to the IT at home users, and makes a nice addition to your desk. As review units roll in we will see just how well these measure up against their competition; for now read on as we look at the specifications.

Lenovo is taking another swing at the MacBook Air. Having discontinued their X300 ultraportable line, Lenovo seemed content to compete at the 11" and 12" form factor, without sitting a horse at the popular but Air dominated 13.3" form factor. But a listing on a Swiss computer distributor's site leaked and documents released on the Lenovo channel distributors' site confirmed that the ThinkPad purveyor is planning to take on the Air with a 21.5 mm thick ultraportable notebook called the X1. 

While not quite as thin as the much hailed MBA, the X1 packs impressive specifications, especially for a device targeted at those of us used to sacrificing performance for lightweight. Headlining the device is a 2.5GHz Core i5-2520M CPU, the same processor as can be found in the 34.6 mm thick X220. Let me say that again, Lenovo managed to grow the screen and pack the same processor into a device one third less thick. A 13.3" 1366 x 768 Gorilla Glass screen, 160GB SSD, 8GB of RAM, an SDXC card reader and the excellent keyboard and build quality we've come to expect from the ThinkPad line round out the specifications. But that's not all.

Earlier today, Lenovo released slides from a distribution webinar that reveals that the X1 will sport a new type of battery which promise significant improvements in stamina and charging speed. Lenovo claims an 80% charge in just 30 plugged in minutes, for the sealed battery. This battery technology is expected to be included in all their future ultraportable notebooks including the previously announced Edge 220s and 420s, and the X1 is rated at 5 hours of use between charges. And there's one more thing.

In the same slide discussing the new warranty policies regarding these new batteries, Lenovo reveals that the battery tech will be included in the X Slate – presumably Lenovo's upcoming Honeycomb based tablet offering.

CHINESE HARDWARE OUTFIT Lenovo has denied that is working on a 23-inch tablet.

Despite wish-fulfillment speculation from the blogscape that Lenovo is working on a humungous 23-inch shiny drinks tray, it claims it isn’t.

Online rumours spread like wildfire that Lenovo was developing a strange hybrid touchscreen all-in-one tablet PC. It didn’t help that a rogue Lenovo employee said something vague about the size. As soon as that went out, it was immediately assumed by the world plus dog that said tablet was roadmapped for the near future, but veiled under non-disclosure agreements.

We contacted Lenovo, which told us in no uncertain terms that there is no such thing as a 23-inch tablet.

“As you know, it is usually not Lenovo’s practice to talk about unannounced products, but in this case I will tell you that Lenovo has no plans to introduce a 23-inch tablet,” said a Lenovo spokesperson.

So there you are. But the statement does kind of fly in the face of the direction Lenovo was taking at the beginning of 2011. In January we reported that Lenovo was going to tablet the world. Lenovo announced the Ipad killing Lepad tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show. The company also predicted that tablets will take 10 to 15 per cent of the overall PC market and kill netbook sales. µ

We try not to bring you too much news about product announcements unless there's something particularly intriguing about them; we get inundated by them and most of the time it's the most generic of refreshes. Happily that's not the case with Lenovo's shiny new ThinkPad X220 notebooks.

Inexplicably Lenovo is opting to label these two very different notebooks under the same X220 header: one is a tablet clocking in at 3.88 pounds with a 4-cell battery; the other is an ultraportable that weighs less than three pounds. Both come with support for either SSDs or mechanical hard disks (with a 4GB SSD option as a special order).

We'll start with the ultraportable X220. Lenovo is shipping it with a 12.5" 1366×768 LED-backlit screen, but you can upgrade to an IPS panel. It maxes out at 8GB of DDR3 and has a strong spread of Sandy Bridge mobile processors to choose from, starting with the Core i3-2310M at 2.1GHz and going all the way up to the i7-2620M at 2.7GHz. Strangely, only the i7-equipped models come with USB 3.0 connectivity. Reviews of the X220 are already popping up on the internet and the IPS screen is proving as impressive as you'd expect, but not nearly as impressive as the battery running time: Lenovo claims up to 15 hours on a 9-cell battery, a hyperbolic figure to be sure but not as crazy as you'd think. NotebookReview's test model came with a 6-cell battery and was pushing nine hours.

You can see and eventually order the ultraportable X220 here, and MSRP is expected to start at a not-unseemly 9.

The other X220 is the tablet model. Again it ships with a 12.5" 1366×768 LED-backlit screen, but in this case the only choice is the finish you want on the IPS panel: Infinity Glass or Corning Gorilla. Yes, the X220 tablet comes with an IPS panel standard, proving that Lenovo understands what ViewSonic couldn't figure out with their tablet: that viewing angles are really important. Unfortunately the X220 tablet is nearly a pound heavier than its ultraportable cousin and doesn't come with an option for USB 3.0 connectivity. Lenovo quotes nine hours of running time with the 8-cell battery.

The X220 Tablet isn't up on Lenovo's site yet, but MSRP is expected to start at ,199.