The notebook computer market has been healthy for the past few years, and lately manufacturers have branched out into so-called “specialty notebooks,” including gaming notebooks, ultra light-weight business notebooks, and now Lenovo is introducing a dedicated “entertainment notebook.”
InformationWeek.com is reporting that Lenovo officially introduced three new notebook computers this week which are designed specifically for home theater and entertainment purposes. The Lenovo ThinkPad U110, for example, is powered by a dual core Centrino processor, and features a 1.3 megapixel camera embedded into the screen chassis, as well as a frameless screen and a sleek, home theater-type design.
More and more, manufacturers have been edging away from business laptops and toward the entertainment market. Lenovo latest offering takes this trend a step further by including Dolby home theater surround sound, integrated WiFi, and a high-end DVD recorder/player combo.
The new Lenovo notebooks contain four top mounted speakers and a hidden sub woofer on the bottom of the unit. The notebooks also ship with Lenovo’s multimedia control center software, and allows one touch DVD viewing.
MP3 and music support is also a big part of the new entertainment notebooks, and users can access their music collection from a single button above the keyboard. Likewise, photo viewing can be accessed just as easily, and the notebooks have touch sensitive controls that allow the user to choose multimedia files, while setting volume and equalization controls with one click.
The flagship of the new line is the Y710, which features a 17 inch widescreen display, 2 GB of standard memory and a 500 GB hard drive. Optionally, the notebooks can be outfitted with a second hard drive which is “hot swappable” to transfer movies, music and other data easily.
Other manufacturers are also jumping on the “entertainment notebook” bandwagon. Dell, for example, is producing no less than six new notebooks which are aimed squarely at into attainment users, with advanced DVD and music player functionality.
The popularity of portable MP3 players has also pushed many laptop manufacturers to include fully-featured music and media players that can be operated independently of the computer itself. For example, Lenovo’s new entertainment notebooks feature a one touch media select button to access music and movies without going through the usual Windows start up.
As more and more mobile phones begin featuring advanced multimedia players, the pressure is on to make notebook computers lighter, slimmer, and with increased functionality for playing media files.
Although companies like Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Dell are on the forefront of this trend, over the next few years it is likely the notebook computer itself will evolve into an all-in-one multimedia machine, similar to the trend we now see in mobile phones.
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A decent laptop from Lenovo? I would have never guessed lol. All the bells and whistles seem to be there though, but i wonder about its gaming capability.
Comment by Darryl — October 26, 2009 @ 8:20 am