Lenovo Announces the IdeaPad

An anonymous reader writes "Marking the start of news releases from this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Lenovo has dropped a major announcement on consumers - the arrival of a new line of notebooks. The IdeaPads will be the consumer-friendly companion to the ThinkPads. The announcement covers three notebooks, the 17" Y710, the 15" Y510, and the 11", 2.4lb U110. The IdeaPads will bring a number of firsts to Lenovo's notebooks, including a SSD upgrade option, dual hard drives (Y710 only), and a 17" notebook."

face recognition

[cynicsreport]

The IdeaPads have a new feature: Face Recognition. The idea is that the user can sit in front of the computer and log into Windows Vista without entering the password.
This raises the question: could one just hold up a photograph of the user to log in?

Please no

[slaker]

I'd rather they give the toy computers a different name. I know they're trying to draw an association with the Cadillac of laptops, but I'm essentially certain that Ideapads are going to be missing all the things that make Thinkpads genuinely good, like titanium frames and godly support. You can look at a Thinkpad and see a serious and well constructed computer; that's not true with other business notebooks and frankly I'd rather not have to explain why an Ideapad is different from a Thinkpad, any more than I want to explain why the POS Inspiron isn't the same thing as a Latitude.

My customers love their Thinkpads, but I'm going to hate having to tell them that the Lenovos with 17" screens and bright colors on the chassis just aren't the same as the decent ones. Because I know I'll have customers (having years of experience that says "Thinkpad = good laptop") that won't understand the difference until it's too late.

Re:face recognition

[dgatwood]

Try it with a camcorder w/ built-in LCD panel and I suspect you'll get different results. Use a bigger screen that can show your face at actual life size, and it is almost certain. Most decent face recognition systems can detect a picture because the perspective never changes, but unless it has more than one camera, it will likely be easily fooled by a video clip....

Re:Yawn

[Telvin_3d]

You say that sarcastically, but there is a big grain of truth. As someone who used to sell laptops, the market has almost no differentiation. Every three months, HP, Dell, Toshiba and the rest release new models in step. You try explaining to someone the difference between three notebooks that all have the same 15" screen, processor, hard drive and RAM. If this thing doesn't sell itself, then no one else will go to the trouble.

Re:Where's the Cheap Webpads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping we'll see something come out of the move to commercialize the tech in the XO laptop. That thing is already very close to what I want: high DPI screen, wifi, USB, low power consumption, extremely low power display-only mode for reading, all flash memory. Ditch the keyboard, maybe add touch screen if it can be done cheap. Otherwise, the swivel screen allows you to flip between a tablet-looking mode to a keyboard mode easily. (Probably makes the device more bulky, so dropping it for touch screen would be nice)

Re:Ordinary Motors! Common Oil!!!

[Speare]

So, now the Chinese are aping the Japanese method and renamed the thinkpad the ideapad?

No, they're simply ridding the Lenovo line of any trace of the old IBM culture and trademarks. Thirty years ago, IBM employees used to go to the nearest office supply cabinet, and pull out these little pocket notepads with a leatherette cover. On the leatherette cover, only the word "THINK" was printed, in gold foil lettering. It became so ingrained in the IBM employee culture that the name ThinkPad was an obvious choice for the laptop when it was released. Lenovo isn't IBM.

Re:face recognition

[dpilot]

If this were made in the US instead of China, we could have some real DHS paranoid ramblings...

Imagine a secret partition on the hard drive that holds (profiled) characteristics of terrorists faces. So the laptop keeps track of whoever is using it, checks it against its secret database, and next time it's connected to the internet, files a report with DHS.

This is nothing new

[Cannelloni]

I've had two ThinkPads: a T22 and an X31. Both were decent workhorses but suffered from faulty operating systems (modified OEM versions of Win 98 SE and Win 2000, respectively, remedied by me switching to Debian for fun, Win XP for boring stuff...) and they didn't even ship with restore CDs (they used a dedicated restore partition with a system image on it). The right hinge on the T22 broke after a couple of years of normal use (no drops, no manhandling). The display dies on the T22 after a few weeks, the HD a number of weeks later... On the other hand, the X31 was a damn good and nippy little machine. I bought the se machines because at the time, I had to use Windows software. Now I use a Macbook Pro... No reason to run Windows or by a Windows machine any more. The MBP is the bomb.

Re:Consumer friendly??

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what you're missing here is the simple fact that a high price is, by definition, "consumer-unfriendly".

Coupled with "you get what you pay for", it comes out as what you said.

Re:No Trackpoint.

[GeoSanDiego]

I agree. As long as they make laptops with trackpoints I will only ever purchase laptops with trackpoints.