Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet

Pros Compact and convenient tablet design. Decent battery life.

Cons Intel Atom processor offers limited performance. Keyboard accessory not available. Bottom Line The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a fairly well-built Windows slate tablet, but it does little to distinguish itself in a crowded field of competitors.

By Brian Westover

Touch and Windows 8 go together like peanut butter and jelly, each bringing out the best in the other. With the IdeaTab Miix 10, Lenovo has combined the two with a highly portable, energy-efficient tablet, letting you take this sandwich of goodness with you on the go. The Miix 10 is a decent Windows tablet, but it's not the only one on the market, and like a PB&J, if you've had one, you've had 'em all.

Design
The Miix 10 is a 10-inch slate tablet with a slim design similar to other competing tablets, like the Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx K3011 and the Asus VivoTab Smart ME400C—the 10.1-inch display makes up the entire front of the device, and the chassis is backed by a polycarbonate plastic back. While it's sturdier than some, the Miix 10's construction feels decidedly middle-of-the-road. It's not noticeably flimsy, but it lacks the solid feel of an Apple iPad or Microsoft Surface Pro. The Miix 10 measures 6.8 by 10.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD), and weighs only 1.3 pounds.

In many respects, the Miix 10 is similar to the Lenovo K3011, with the main differences being the 1-inch delta in screen size and the Lynx's inclusion of a docking keyboard. Like the Lenovo K3011, the Miix 10 is sold as a tablet alone, but a separate keyboard will soon be offered by Lenovo to offer laptop-like functionality. While pricing isn't yet available, the keyboard puts Lenovo's AccuType chiclet keyboard into a portfolio-style case which doubles as a stand. Retailers are currently offering the Miix 10 tablet for sale without the accessory keyboard, but it was not available for our review, which will similarly focus on the tablet alone.

The 10.1-inch display offers 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is far from impressive, especially when compared to the high-res displays seen on smartphones and smaller CE tablets, but it's par for the course among Windows tablets. The touch screen offers 5-finger tracking, and the touch functionality worked well the entire time I tested the tablet. Tablets rarely have good sound quality, and the Miix 10 is no exception. The sound was fairly anemic, with little bass and tinny sound at the high end. As with most tablets, you'll be better off with headphones.

The 10-inch display is actually a bit easier to use than the 11-inches of the Lenovo K3011, but the 16:9 aspect ratio of the display is a little too long when held in portrait mode. This problem is by no means isolated to the Miix 10, but is something we've run into with most Windows tablets.

Features
The slim confines of a tablet chassis don't leave much room for full-size ports and connectors, so everything's mini and micro on the Miix 10. On the bottom edge of the tablet is a micro USB 2.0 port, along with a micro HDMI port on the side, and a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB cards). The micro USB port looks a little different, as it doubles as a docking port for the accessory keyboard, but it will still work with any micro USB cable. The micro SD card slot is a little inconvenient, with a removable cover and a recessed slot that's a little hard to reach. The micro HDMI port will also require picking up a separate adapter before you can hook it up to your HDTV.

On extra feature is Lenovo's Motion Control, which leverages the Miix 10's integrated 1-Megapixel webcam to let you use gestures in the air for things like turning pages, fast forward or rewind through music, and adjust volume with the wave of a hand. But why use gestures in the air when you have a touch screen literally in your hands? Webcam based gesture controls have always been something of a gimmick, but incorporating them into a tablet, with touch and gesture controls already baked in, seems like a waste.

Also using the webcam is Veriface, which lets you log into the system with both security and ease thanks to facial recognition. Lenovo puts just a few other programs on the Miix 10, but given the small storage capacity, you may want to remove any that seem unnecessary. On the Miix 10, Lenovo pre-installs a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 365, one-month trial of McAfee Internet Security, as well as apps for shopping (Amazon, Ebay), media consumption (FilmOn Television, RaRa Metro, Zinio Metro, Amazon Kindle) and some productivity as well (Skype, Evernote). Lenovo also expands on the limited local storage with Lenovo Cloud Storage by SugarSync, which also lets you share files easily between the Mixx 10 and any other PC you use. Lenovo covers the Miix 10 with a one-year warranty.

Performance
With the same 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor and 2GB of RAM seen in a half-dozen other competing tablets, I wasn't expecting much deviation from the norm in terms of performance, and I was right. In PCMark 7, the Miix 10 performed in line with competitors, scoring 1,443 points, and CineBench R11.5 with 0.53 points, nearly identical to all of the similarly equipped systems. The Miix 10 will do the trick for web browsing and media, along with some basic productivity, though you will likely see it bog down if you're browsing with several tabs open or trying to work with a large data set in something like Excel.

This overall performance is okay, so long as you recognize that these sorts of Atom-powered tablets are meant to serve as second or third devices and not replace a Windows PC. For example, the Miix 10 finished Handbrake in 6 minutes 43 seconds. While this is par for the course among its Atom-powered peers, it doesn't compare well against more expensive tablets equipped with Intel Core processors, like the Microsoft Surface Pro, which completed the same test in 1 minute 28 seconds.

But where Atom processors shine is in energy efficiency. The Lenovo Miix 10 lasted 7 hours 20 minutes in our battery rundown test, which means it will last you well through a full day in regular use. Compared with the likes of the Microsoft Surface Pro (4:58), this sort of battery life is superb, but it's actually on the low-end for Atom tablets, which frequently last longer than 8 hours. The Asus ME400C, for example, lasted 8:43, and the pint-sized Acer Iconia W3 lasted even longer (9:24).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a solid entry into the ever expanding category of Atom-powered tablet PCs. While the overall performance and battery life don't deviate too drastically from the average, it does have the downside of not being sold with any sort of keyboard, an accessory offered bundled with or sold alongside most competitors. With or without a keyboard, the Lenovo Miix 10 is a thoroughly middle-of-the-road offering, without much to distinguish it from its peers. The current Editors' Choice for Windows Tablets remains the Microsoft Surface Pro.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431

Pros Windows 7. Nice price. Removable battery. Good multimedia performance. Sturdy, comfortable keyboard. Dual pointing devices. Fingerprint reader. Function keys work as icons first, F1-F12 second. Matte finish screen. Large multi-touch trackpad.

Cons Middling battery life. USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports are both black. No 5GHz Wi-Fi support. 1,366 by 768 resolution. Bottom Line We recommend small business owners buy a true business PC like the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 rather than trying to repurpose a consumer budget laptop. It will pay off in comfort, performance, and peace of mind.

By Joel Santo Domingo

The E431 has a comfortable keyboard, dual pointing devices, security features like a fingerprint reader, and you can grab one for less than $600. It's our latest Editors' Choice for small business laptops.

Design and Features
The E431 looks like a pretty standard business laptop. No fancy, exotic materials or swoopy shapes, but the E431 nevertheless instills a sense of sturdiness by using a pair of offset hinges, which give the system a premium look and feel. Speaking of feel, the E431's large trackpad combines a row of three buttons on the top edge to service the TrackPoint pointing stick. This way the E431 will keep older users happy. You know, like the ones that learned how to use a laptop on their 1990s-era ThinkPad? The chiclet-style keyboard is comfy and sturdy, with none of the keyboard flex that tends to crop up in less expensive systems. The E431 also comes with a fingerprint reader located to the right of the trackpad, in case you or your clients require biometrics for security or one-touch login needs. The trackpad itself is large, multi-touch, and is just as responsive as the pointing stick.

The row of 12 function keys at the top of the keyboard all function as the icon denotes (vol+/-, mic off, search, etc.) and F1-F12 requires the user either hold down the Fn key or activate the FnLock. This makes more sense than the reverse, particularly since F1-F12 kind of lost their charm after Windows replaced DOS. You can reverse the Fn key behavior in a control panel if you prefer F1-F12. The E431 still has its DVD burning optical drive, contributing to the system's 4.44 pound weight. The system comes with a full set of I/O ports, including a USB 2.0 port, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, SD card reader, and an Ethernet port. There is one nit, since the USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports are all the same black color. You'll need sharp eyes to see the USB SS icons next to the ports on the left side of the chassis. The industry habit of blue USB 3.0 ports would've been a more prominent and identifiable. That said, the system has more ports and features than similarly priced laptops like the Toshiba Satellite C875-S7340 ($620) and the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 ($550).

The ThinkPad Edge E431 and its larger brother, the E531, are notable in that they are pioneering Lenovo's new OneLink dock (stay tuned for our full review). OneLink is wider than a standard power plug, but it allows mostly sedentary laptop users to keep USB peripherals, Ethernet, and HDMI monitor(s) permanently connected to a $120 Lenovo ThinkPad OneLink dock for convenience. Future Lenovo ThinkPad and ThinkPad Edge products will use OneLink as well, but the E431 is the first.

The E431's screen measures 14 inches diagonally and has a matte finish. It's not a touch screen, but the system is running Windows 7, which doesn't require touch, and the non-touch screen contributes to the lower purchase price. Systems like the touch-equipped Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch ($700) are much more expensive. The screen has a 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is fine for 720p videos and most websites, but users who need to work in larger spreadsheets may want a 1080p screen, though again you will have to pay more. One business-friendly feature that comes with the E431 is the removable battery. Unlike many recent systems, the E431's battery can be swapped for a freshly charged one if you're running out of juice. Another 6-cell 48-WHr battery will cost you $99.99. See below in performance to see why picking one up is a good idea.

The E431 came with a few pre-loaded apps like Evernote, Skype, and a selection of Lenovo utilities, but the system is relatively unencumbered by bloatware. One app of note is WiDi, which will let you stream the video from the E431 to a HDTV, display, or video adapter with WiDi capabilities. The E431 comes with a one-year warranty.

Performance
The E431 comes with a third-generation Intel Core i5-3230M processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000, 500GB 7,200rpm hard drive, and 4GB of system memory. While these specs don't seem too impressive compared with components in some ultrabooks, the system is actually a very good performer on our benchmark tests. The E431 completed the Handbrake video encoding test and the Photoshop CS6 test many minutes faster than other budget systems like the Lenovo S405 and Dell Inspiron 17-3721 ($450). It just goes to show that if your business is on the line, it pays to spend a bit more than the bare minimum on a system. It will certainly last longer that way. Expect a good three to five years of service from the ThinkPad Edge E431.

That said, The IdeaPad E431 has adequate, yet unimpressive battery life from the included battery. The system lasts almost four hours (3:55), which used to be a notable number, but now is merely adequate. You might want to make a habit of carrying the AC adapter or another fully charged spare battery if you want to use the E431 all day. Face it: you'll have to pay more for a 4th generation Intel Core powered system like an ultrabook if you want all-day battery life. The E431 is more of a part-time portable.

And there's the rub. The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 won't make you stop pining for one of the high-end ultrabooks, nor should it. That's not its place. The ThinkPad Edge E431 is an excellent business laptop for the money, and certainly a more portable and capable business PC compared to a lighter duty tablet like the Microsoft Surface RT ($699/499) or Dell XPS 10 ($649). In addition to Office, the E431 is capable of running full Windows software like Quickbooks, Photoshop, or TurboTax. We haven't given an Editors' Choice for dyed-in-the-wool Small Business laptops in ages, and the ThinkPad Edge E431 certainly qualifies in terms of bang for the buck. It's a much better business choice than just buying one of the less expensive consumer laptops, since it will have a much longer useful life on your desk or on the move.

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Lenovo reveals the Flex laptop series, a pair of new Yogas, and the Flex 20 all-in-one PC

Lenovo makes more noise at IFA today, announcing two new ThinkPad Yoga models, the Flex thin-and-light series, and the Flex 20 portable all-in-one PC. Each of four new PCs will feature fourth-generation Intel Core processors (aka Haswell), but the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is the most interesting, thanks to its 13-inch display that delivers an eye-popping resolution of 3200-by-1800-pixels.

The Yoga 2 Pro feature’s the now-familiar dual-hinge design that allows the display to be oriented into four modes: Tent, stand, tablet, and laptop. But unlike previous models, this one will boast a 13-inch multi-touch display with native resolution of 3200 by 1800 pixels. The new chassis is also thinner and lighter than previous models, measuring 0.61 inches thick and weighing 3.06 pounds.

The Yoga 2 Pro, also pictured above, features a backlit keyboard.

Processor choices will range up to a Core i7 with integrated graphics, coupled with up to 8GB of DDR3 memory. Storage options consist of 128, 256, or 512GB SSDs, and I/O ports include one USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, micro HDMI, and an SD/MMC card reader.

The Yoga 2 Pro will be available in October at prices starting at $1100.

The ThinkPad Yoga delivers all the presentation flexibility of the consumer-oriented Yoga in an IT-friendly form factor.

Many corporate IT departments eschew Lenovo’s consumer-oriented IdeaPad product line, a policy that left a lot of suits disappointed that they couldn’t pack the earlier IdeaPad Yoga 11S or Yoga 13 in their briefcases.

That barrier should disappear with the ThinkPad Yoga, a rugged convertible featuring a magnesium-alloy shell, a 12.5-inch Gorilla Glass touchscreen, and a “lift-and-lock” keyboard that automatically retracts the keyboard to present a flush surface when the notebook is placed in tablet mode.

The ThinkPad Yoga will be available with Intel Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7 CPUs and up to 8GB of DDR3/1600 memory. In spite of its 0.74-inch thickness, the machine will be outfitted with a 1TB hard drive as standard equipment, with a 256GB SSD as an available option. The ThinkPad version of the Yoga will be limited to 1920 by 1080 resolution, but it will be available with an optional Wacom pen digitizer. It will also get a better collection of I/O ports, including two USB 3.0 ports and a four-in-one card reader in addition to mini HDMI.

The ThinkPad Yoga will be available in November at prices starting at $949.

It’s easy to mistake the Lenovo Flex, available in 14- and 15-inch configurations, for the Yoga series, but there’s a key difference. The display on the Flex series pivots only 300 degrees. You can position it to face forward to watch a movie or make it easier to use the touchscreen, but you can’t pivot it into tablet mode.

No, that's not a Yoga. It's the Lenovo Flex 14 (unlike it's more limber cousin, its display can pivot only 300 degrees).

The Flex 15’s display delivers full 1920 by 1080 resolution, but the 14-inch model is limited to 1366 by 768 pixels. Discrete Nvidia mobile graphics will be offered as options. Both models will be available with up to Intel Core i7 CPUs and up to 8GB of memory. Storage comes in the form of mechanical hard drives (up to 500GB for the Flex 14, and up to 1TB for the Flex 15), with 16GB SSD cache drives as available options. The Flex line will also be thicker and heavier than the Yoga series, with the 15-inch model measuring 0.87 inches thick and weighing 5.07 pounds.

The Lenovo Flex series will be available later this month at prices starting at $630.

I was quite taken with Lenovo’s 27-inch IdeaCentre Horizon portable all-in-one, but carting a 19-pound computer around the house isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The Flex 20 scales that concept down to a 19.5-inch touchscreen display, shaving more than 10 pounds in the process. Unfortunately, the Flex 20 also scales the resolution down: to 1600 by 900 pixels. On the bright side, it’s compatible with the joysticks, strikers, and e-dice that Lenovo developed for the Horizon.

You might think of the Lenovo Flex 20 as a scaled-down IdeaCentre Horizon 27.

The Flex 20 will be available with up to a Core i7 processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 500GB hybrid hard drive with an 8GB SSD cache. I/O ports are limited to two USB 3.0 ports and a headset jack. The all-in-one will have an integrated 720p webcam and stereo speakers. Lenovo says it should be capable of running on battery power for up to three hours.

The Flex 20 will be available later this month at prices starting at $900.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Lenovo gets deeper into smartphones with Vibe handset

Lenovo sells most of its smartphones in China but it hopes to break out internationally with a new line of handsets called the Vibe.

Lenovo announced the first member of the new lineup Wednesday, the Vibe X. The smartphone runs Android and has some premium features, including a 5-inch, high-definition screen that can display images at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.

Lenovo’s Vibe X smartphone

The phone is 7 millimeters thick and weighs 121 grams. It has a 13-megapixel, rear-facing and 5-megapixel, front-facing camera, which is better than most smartphones.

The Vibe X has a quad-core MediaTek 1.5GHz processor, 16GB of flash storage and 2GB of RAM. It connects to 2G and 3G networks but does not support LTE, which could reduce its chances of coming to the U.S. market.

The phone will be available in China in October and in other markets starting in December. Pricing will be announced at a later date and will vary by region, said Keith Liu, director of launch marketing at Lenovo Business Group.

Lenovo's best known smartphone is the K900, which runs on an Intel processor and has sold well in China.

Lenovo was the world's third-largest smartphone vendor in the second quarter, according to a Canalys study released in August.

With Vibe, Lenovo hopes to grow in markets outside China, Liu said.

"We're very new in the market outside China, and we're very happy with our progress," Liu said.

Lenovo also announced the S5000 tablet, which has a 7-inch screen and Google's Android 4.2 operating system, the same as the Vibe X. The tablet has a 1280 x 800 pixel display, 1.6-megapixel front camera, 5-megapixel rear camera, 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM.

It's 8 millimeters thick and weighs 246 grams. The tablet runs on a quad-core MediaTek processor, and battery life is an estimated six hours watching video and eight hours surfing the Web.

Lenovo did not provide pricing or availability details for the tablet.

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Lenovo C540 Touch review: An excellent budget all-in-one that delivers on performance

Lenovo’s C540 Touch is one of the two best all-in-ones in this roundup. And while I have no significant complaints about the quality of its multitouch display, the manner in which the glass is recessed behind the bezel is disconcerting when you’re sweeping your finger in from the edge to call up the Windows 8 charms bar. The display measures 23 inches diagonally—just like the Acer, HP, and Toshiba models—but it’s mounted to a stand rather than being incorporated into a monolithic frame.

Lenovo pairs the Intel Core i3-3240 CPU with 8GB of DDR3/1600 memory—more than any of the other machines we looked at—and it packs a 1TB, 7200 rpm hard drive inside its somewhat thick chassis. All-in-ones are notoriously difficult to upgrade, so having lots of memory onboard to start is a major benefit.

PCWorld's Desktop Worldbench 8.1 benchmark suite measures performance with a number of productivity, creation, and entertainment programs.

The C540 Touch’s Desktop Worldbench 8.1 score of 129 identifies it as nearly 30-percent faster than our Core i5-powered reference machine, Acer’s Aspire A5600U-UB13 , and just a whisker behind the Toshiba PX35t-A2210. The Lenovo has a faster CPU, which helped it deliver very good media editing and encoding scores, but its weak Intel HD Graphics 2500 integrated GPU left it running in the back of the pack on our gaming benchmarks, producing just 16.1 frames per second with BioShock Infinite, even with the game running at resolution of just 1024 by 768 pixels and with its visual quality set to Low. The Toshiba, which features an Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated GPU, produced this game at a much quicker 26.6 frames per second. Neither experience is ideal, but at least the Toshiba won’t leave you looking at a slideshow.

The recessed display on Lenovo's C540 Touch is a little weird for a touchscreen computer.

Although Lenovo doesn’t have any big-name speaker manufacturers to boast of, the C540 Touch produces surprisingly good sound from its down-firing speakers. Lenovo is rather stingy with the USB 3.0 ports, providing just two on the left side of the display (along with mic and headphone jacks). Four USB 2.0 ports, hardwired gigabit ethernet, and an HDMI input are located in the back. You’ll use two of those rear USB ports to plug in Lenovo’s mouse and keyboard. The mouse is a two-button, bargain-basement cheapie; but the keyboard, while also exceedingly basic, delivers excellent tactile feedback.

It’s tough to say which all-in-one is best, the Toshiba TX35t-A2210 or the Lenovo C540 Touch. The Toshiba looks more attractive and performs better with games, but the Lenovo’s more-powerful CPU and additional memory delivers better performances on our audio-encoding, video-encoding, and image-editing benchmarks. Their Worldbench scores, meanwhile, leave them essentially tied.

Editor's note: This all-in-one was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five all-in-ones we compared it to, here.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch review: A 15.6-inch budget laptop that's strong on performance and can survive some rugged handling

This solidly built notebook features a great touchscreen display, an even better keyboard, and a huge and fast hard drive. But Lenovo’s networking component choices are a bit disappointing.

Lenovo laptops are the models of choice for many corporate IT departments, and the company manufactures some very good consumer-oriented machines, too. The IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a case in point. You wouldn’t mistake it for a sleek Ultrabook—it’s thick and heavy, and its battery life is wretched—but the Z400 did finish second on Notebook WorldBench 8.1 in our five-laptop competition. And despite Lenovo’s copious use of plastic, the Z400 is built like a brick outhouse.

LenovoLenovo's IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a strong contender.

Lenovo stuck with Intel’s third-generation Core processor for this budget-priced machine, pairing a 1.6GHz Core i5-3230M with 6GB of DDR/1600 memory. At 14.0 inches, its 1366-by-768-pixel display is much smaller than the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870’s 15.6-inch display; but the IdeaPad Z400 boasts a ten-point touchscreen, whereas the Acer does not.

The Z400 is an attractive PC, with charcoal-colored soft-touch paint on the outside and a pretty carbon-fiber look on the inside. Lenovo’s computer feels as rugged as Acer’s feels fragile. Though the display exhibits a little flex, the lower chassis is as rigid as some all-metal bodies I’ve tried to bend. The downside to the solid construction is weight gain: Despite its smaller display, the Z400 outweighs the Acer by 0.7 pound. Still, it comes by most of that weight honestly. Lenovo provides 6GB of memory (as against Acer’s 4GB); packs a 1TB, 7200-rpm hard drive (versus the Aspire’s 500GB drive); and includes a DVD burner (Acer provides no optical drive at all).

The tests in this suite evaluate how well a system handles editing digital media files and encoding them to different formats.

The IdeaPad Z400 comes with the type of top-notch keyboard that Lenovo is famous for building. The island-style keyboard is fully backlit and feels great under the fingers. It lacks a dedicated numeric keypad, and there’s no provision for temporarily assigning letter keys on the right side an alternative function to serve as one, but I was happy to see the full-size arrow keys in the familiar inverted-T formation at the far edge.

Augmenting the touchscreen is a responsive trackpad that supports most Windows 8 gestures, including two-finger scrolling, swipe, zoom, and rotate. The trackpad doesn’t have distinct right and left mouse buttons, but clicking in the lower right and left areas of the pad perform the same function. Unlike Lenovo’s higher-end notebooks, the Z400 does not embed a trackpoint in its keyboard; however, I found that the trackpad and the touchscreen were all I really needed.

Benchmark performance

The IdeaPad Z400 took a solid second place in our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 benchmark competition (behind the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870), with a score of 132, marking it as 1.3 times faster than our reference Asus VivoBook S550CA, which comes outfitted with a 24GB SSD cache for its hard drive.

None of these inexpensive laptops delivered especially good performance on high-level games such as BioShock Infinite.

The Lenovo placed third in the PCMark 7 Productivity, despite having a 7200-rpm hard drive (both the Acer Aspire E1-572-6870 and the Toshiba Satellite L55Dt-A5253 were much faster). But the IdeaPad captured first place on our media editing and encoding tests. It finished in the middle of the pack on our gaming tests, delivering a leisurely frame rate on BioShock Infinite of 18.4 frames per second, even with resolution set to just 1024 by 768 and visual quality set to Low.

Our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 suite includes a broad array of benchmarks for evaluating a notebook's performance.

Connectivity and conclusion

The IdeaPad Z400’s networking capabilities are a bit disappointing. Though Lenovo selected a high-quality Wi-Fi adapter—Intel’s Centrino Wireless-N 2230—it’s a single-band adapter that doesn’t give you any choice but to connect to crowded 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks. On the bright side, it’s a 2x2 adapter, meaning that it supports a maximum physical link rate of 300 mbps. It also provides Bluetooth 4.0 support, and is compatible with Intel’s WiDi video-streaming technology. The wired ethernet adapter, meanwhile, is limited to 100 mbps—I thought those adapters had gone the way of the PS/2 port.

LenovoAll of the touchscreen notebooks had highly reflective displays.

In addition to WiDi, you have your choice of HDMI or VGA video outputs for connecting to external displays. And like the Acer Aspire, the IdeaPad has three USB ports, but only one of them is the speedy USB 3.0. Lenovo does provide a memory card reader that supports both SD and MMC media, and the company includes Dolby Home Theater technology and a set of decent speakers, so you won’t have to rely on headphones for an enjoyable audio experience.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch is a heavy computer for its size, its network connectivity is weak, and its battery life is very poor. But this laptop is a very good performer, with a great keyboard, an optical drive, and the largest, fastest hard drive in this group. It’s also the machine I’d recommend if you need a computer in this price range that’s rugged enough to tolerate a little rough handling. Overall it finishes a solid second in our roundup.

Editor's note: This notebook was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five notebooks we compared it to, here.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Smartphones and slates outsell computers for Lenovo, the world's top PC maker

Lenovo's sales of tablets and smartphones were higher than that of PCs in its fiscal first quarter, reflecting the company's efforts to reduce its dependence on the ailing PC business.

The company reported on Thursday that net profit jumped 23 percent during its first fiscal quarter ended June 30.

Lenovo's net profit reached $174 million, up from $141 million in the same period a year ago. Its revenue was $8.8 billion, a year-over-year increase of 10 percent.

The Chinese PC maker reported the positive earnings for a quarter when it beat HP to become the world's largest PC maker, according to research firm IDC. During the period all of the top five PC vendors saw decline in shipments, with Lenovo's down year-over-year by 1.4 percent.

Despite the struggling PC market, Lenovo has largely seen strong growth by focusing on selling PCs in its home turf of China, where it receives 42 percent of its revenue, and in other emerging markets. At the same time, the company also focused on developing smartphones, tablets and smart TVs as a way to expand its business.

In China, Lenovo ranks as the second largest vendor of smartphones, putting it behind Samsung, according to research firm Canalys. The Chinese market is so large that Lenovo's market share in the country has made it the third largest smartphone vendor in the world. Year-over-year, its smartphone shipments worldwide were up 131 percent in the quarter, reaching 11.3 million units.

Most of the company's smartphones are sold in China, but the company has also started selling the devices in Southeast Asia, Russia and India. In the future, the company will bring its smartphones to the U.S. and Europe.

The company's mobile devices business, which covers smartphones and tablets, saw its revenue increase 105 percent year-over-year in the period, reaching $1.2 billion. This made up 14 percent of the company's total revenue in the quarter.

In the PC space, Lenovo plans to introduce a next generation of its IdeaPad Yoga product later this year, the company's CEO Yang Yuanqing said during the earnings call Thursday. Its previous Yoga product works as a convertible PC that can be turned into a tablet.

"I believe the PC is a more powerful, multi-function device, people still need this product," he said. "It's still a $200 billion market industry."

In addition, the company will also introduce a new "multi-mode" tablet. Worldwide, the company's tablet sales were up more than three times, year-over-year in the period.

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