This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.
Last year was a good year for Chromebooks and Lenovo made one of the best, the Chromebook Duet. Ahead of CES 2021, the company announced the Tab P11, which essentially uses the same design idea of the Duet but running on Android instead of Chrome OS.
Starting at $230 (£170, AU$295 converted) and expected later this month, the 11-inch tablet leans more toward entertainment than productivity compared to the Duet. But, if you do need to get a little work done on the side, Lenovo will have an optional keyboard with a trackpad that magnetically snaps into place along the bottom edge. There’s also an optional active pen that you can use for note-taking or drawing.
The touchscreen has a 2,000×1,200-pixel resolution with 400-nit brightness and the tablet is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 662 mobile platform with LTE support. An 8-megapixel camera is ready for video chats and there’s a privacy feature that’ll blur your background so you can worry a bit less about what’s in the shot behind you.
A 5G laptop for the rest of us
Lenovo IdeaPad 5G
Lenovo
At CES 2020, Lenovo introduced the Yoga 5G, the first PC running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G Compute Platform, primarily for those who want a premium laptop with 24 hours of battery life and high-speed wireless anywhere. This year, it’s introducing the 14-inch IdeaPad 5G for more everyday users who over the past year discovered their home Wi-Fi connection isn’t the best.
The IdeaPad 5G runs on the same Snapdragon 8cx 5G platform, although it supports only sub-6GHz 5G networks whereas the Yoga 5G works on millimeter wave full-band and sub-6GHz 5G networks. Like other Qualcomm-powered laptops, the IdeaPad 5G has a fanless design and extra-long battery life at up to 20 hours. Its full-HD display will have a 300-nit brightness with 100% sRGB color gamut coverage. A 4G LTE version will be available, too, but neither will be available in North America at this time, Lenovo said. No pricing was announced either.
Lenovo
Lenovo
Lenovo also unveiled the new IdeaPad 5 Pro laptop. Expected to be available in May, the laptop comes in 14- and 16-inch sizes with a choice of Intel (5i Pro) or AMD processors. They’re pretty straightforward slim and lightweight laptops with thin bezels around their 16:10-ratio displays with resolutions up to up to 2.8K on the 14-inch and 2.5K pixel on the 16-inch. They’ll cover 100% sRGB color gamut and certified safer by TÜV Rheinland for having technology to reduce blue light. Both sizes will offer discrete graphics options: Up to Nvidia GeForce MX450 on the 14-inch and Nividia GeForce RTX on the 16-inch.
The 16-inch IdeaPad 5 Pro is expected to ship in May starting at $1,150. It’s also the only model that’ll be available in North America. That converts to approximately £845 and AU$1,470 in the UK and Australia, respectively. The other sizes and configurations are expected in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in March.
