Lenovo to Preview IdeaPad Consumer Laptops at CES

Lenovo, which entered the consumer market in 2008 with its IdeaPad line, is previewing three new mainstream laptops at CES in Las Vegas, and the company also plans to refresh its IdeaPad S10 mininotebook.

In addition to the new laptops, Lenovo is also planning to launch the IdeaCentre A600 all-in-one desktop at CES, which kicks off the week of Jan. 5. The laptops will become available in March and the IdeaCentre A600 desktop becomes available in April.

While Lenovo is detailing its consumer offerings now, Lenovo also plans to preview an enterprise-class mobile workstation at CES called the ThinkPad W700ds. This workstation, which Lenovo announced in December, offers a dual-screen configuration and a quad-core Intel processor.

When Lenovo bought IBM's PC division in 2005, it inherited the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre product lines, which were already well-established laptop and desktop brands within the enterprise. In 2008, the company decided to expand its business into the consumer market, which has helped other vendors such as Hewlett-Packard increase PC sales thanks to the growing demand for laptops.

At the 2008 CES, Lenovo officially launched its IdeaPad line, which included features such as a facial recognition technology called VeriFace Face Recognition, aiming to eliminate the need for passwords and other log-ins.

The new Lenovo IdeaPad laptops include:

• The Lenovo IdeaPad Y650, which is a laptop with a 16-inch display. The Y650 notebook is based on the newer Intel Centrino 2 platform that includes newer Intel Core 2 Duo processors. The Y650 laptop also supports up to 4GB of DDR3 (double data rate 3) main memory and up to 500GB of hard disk drive data storage. In addition to the integrated Intel graphics, the Y650 supports a discrete Nvidia GeForce graphics card. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 will start at $1,199.

• The Lenovo IdeaPad Y550 is a laptop with a 15.6-inch display that supports Intel's Core 2 Duo processors and the Intel GM45 chip set. In addition to the integrated Intel graphics, this laptop also supports a discrete Nvidia graphics card. The Y550 offers the same memory and data capacity configuration as the Y650 laptop. The starting price is $829.

• The Lenovo IdeaPad Y450 is a 14-inch laptop with the same configuration as the IdeaPad Y550. The starting price for the IdeadPad Y450 is also $829.

In addition to the three mainstream IdeaPads, Lenovo is refreshing its IdeaPad S10 mininotebook to include support for the VeriFace facial recognition technology and Lenovo QuickStart, which gives users access to the Web browser or the instant messaging without having to fully boot the operating system. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 costs $349.

Finally, Lenovo will roll out the IdeaCentre A600, an all-in-one desktop PC that features a 21.5-inch frameless screen. The IdeaCentre A600 supports either an Intel Core 2 Duo or Pentium Dual Core processor, the Intel G45M chip set, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and 1TB of hard disk drive data storage. The A600 desktop starts at $999, according to Lenovo.