We’ve been “thinking” about the Lenovo IdeaPads since CES but now that they’re actually launching we’re actually pretty exciting. The models I saw last night were quite striking, a massive departure from the standard Lenovo/ThinkPad fare and they had a special gimmick: face recognition. This sits on top of the standard Vista login and works quite well if you’ve enrolled yourself properly.
The wealth of textures and design tweaks make these some of the most fashion forward laptops I’ve seen. While I still like the M17x for sheer power, this wee laptop is running neck in neck with design-y laptops like the MacBook Air and the Sony VAIO thin and lights. With laptops so far into the commodity stage, it’s hard for folks to differentiate. I think this is a nice move for laptop lovers but hopefully all that high design translates into real performance.
I saw these yesterday too. Very cool. My only question — which they don’t seem to have fully resolved — is what about if you hold a picture of the laptop owner’s face in front the screen. They said sometimes that would unlock the thing, sometimes not and they were working on a solution. Hmmmm…