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  • versesuvius - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Wonderful!
  • ddriver - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    I've wanted to see something similar for at least couple of years - a decent ips or oled plus a pressure sensitive e-ink cover. While the lack of physical keys is somewhat of a disadvantage, it opens up a lot of possibilities.

    Sadly, this device comes short far from revolutionary for several reasons:

    The pen can't be used on the main display, this is a huge oversight, being able to draw directly on the screen is a huge advantage and omitting that is actually a step back, even if they promote it as a "feature".

    The "keyboard" part cannot be used as low power monochrome display, this would do miracles for battery usage, and there are a lot of applications which could be perfectly functional on a monochrome display, notifications, chat, ebooks and whatnot.

    Specs are underwhelming, slow cpu, low ram, storage will probably be lousy too, I honestly don't understand the obsession with "thin" I'd happily take a boost of 50% in thickness in exchange for 50% better performance and 50% more battery.

    They do not specify it, but I suspect it would be fairly easy to get good touch pressure sensitivity from the keyboard as well, and I mean per touch point, unlike "force touch", and having good pressure sensitivity for touch can have a wide range of uses.

    Additionally, the keyboard part can be serviced by something as small and simple as a cortex M core, which should be enough to draw on it, process pen and touch to reduce input latency, and can even run some core apps on the keyboard screen, meaning you could use some of the device functionality without running the main display and the main cpu, which would result in tremendous power saving, and I mean weeks of battery life in that mode.

    Another big omission is that they haven't figured to customize the keyboard part for custom UI for different applications. For example, in photoshop the keyboard would be very useful as a GUI controller, where you can have icons for the tools, controls for brushes, undo/redo and whatnot, freeing the color screen. Note that this doesn't explicitly need application support, the gui can be developed by 3rd parties and simply map the controls to keyboard commands. Additionally, it would be very useful to be able to reduce the keyboard size to fit custom shortcuts / always on widgets to control the device and its software.

    Congrats to lenovo for finally figuring make something like this, but the way they've envisioned their "revolutionary" new device, it doesn't even come close to scratch the surface of the full potential of this combination. Feel free to take up on my ideas, just don't forget to send me a unit when you make it.
  • Tams80 - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    Spot on.

    One issue with the 'keyboard'. I believe it's etched in. Using a monochrome display would solve that though.
  • ddriver - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    Yes, it seems it is just a static keyboard pattern that can be illuminated, replacing it with a backlit e-ink display could do miracles in terms of usability.
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  • nikon133 - Monday, September 5, 2016 - link

    I think Lenovo's intention is to offer alternative that competes with Arm tablets, which are often used without physical keyboard.

    Doing high power, productivity laptop with no keyboard would be quite strange... outside of some very niche segments.
  • mkozakewich - Monday, September 5, 2016 - link

    No. The keyboard part could be serviced by a Core M, and weeks of battery life? Atom would be better for that, and any emission of light will eat up battery. I agree an e-paper screen or such would be nice, but running a full display would already eat up a lot more power than just lighting up a pre-etched pattern (which is what they're doing here).

    I looked at the specs and correctly judged that it would be in the $500 range. You're looking at $1000 for the kind of performance and capacity you want.

    I feel like people with no experience tend to have an easier time drawing directly on a screen, but it's less accurate. Decoupling the screen and the tablet surface means you don't have to worry about the sensing being absolutely pixel-perfect across the entire display (which is really hard, as we saw with the Surface Pro), you don't have to worry about the thickness of the glass causing parallax errors depending on your angle of view, and your hand/pen never get in the way of where your cursor is on the screen. Honestly, it's not unilaterally better; there are pros and cons to weigh, and different users will choose differently. (Personally, I like this one far more.)
  • ddriver - Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - link

    The keyboard part could be serviced by a Cortex M4, which is not watts but milliwatts at full load. e-ink displays only use power when the image is changed, they can retain the same image indefinitely, and with an e-ink the led backlight would only be needed in the dark, so it could actually use less power than lighting a static etch. E-ink readers have already proven they can last for weeks on a charge, and they have significantly more power hungry processors than the M4.

    Graphics tablet that allow direct drawing on the screen are premium products, and every professional out there who can afford one is using one, only wacom's entry level and midrange are just dummy pads with no display on them. Regardless of how experienced you are, it is always easier and better to draw directly on the display.
  • p1esk - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Those huge ugly bezels...
  • Morawka - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    look at the price point.. More than likely they will release a core M version for a grand, that is edge to edge like the XPS 13. This model is gonna test the keyboard functionality and gauge market interests.
  • p1esk - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    $500 for Atom processor? Can't say I'm impressed.
  • Morawka - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Blame intel, they are charging around $110 tray for that cpu. I've seen arm dies bigger than that and sell for less than $25
  • Gunbuster - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    WUT? Intel lists the chip as "Recommended Customer Price $27.00" http://ark.intel.com/products/93360/Intel-Atom-x5-...
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link

    The Atom isn't the main bottleneck... that would be the eMMC (Not sure what this machine has but as it's 64Gb it probably is)
  • mkozakewich - Monday, September 5, 2016 - link

    I've gotten $100 tablets with less bezel. No, it's just about how they design it. Likely, they wanted battery capacity to be a selling feature and weren't willing to increase the price even more with a bigger display.
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    ...and? I have to actually hold the device so do need some bezel.
  • p1esk - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    How do you manage to hold your smartphone?
  • RBFL - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Most smartphones don't have 10.1" screens and thus you can hold them without putting fingers on the touchscreen.
  • vegabook - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    just what I though. I quite like the whole thing but *what* were they thinking with those bezels. Makes a u-boat periscope proud.
  • Tams80 - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    That technology Intel had for virtual bezels has gone nowhere. You need to hold something.

    Plus, if you look at thin bezel laptops, they have nasal cameras.
  • versesuvius - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    I have always thought that the greatest test of usability is how comfortable a 7 year old child is with the device. If a child is comfortable with a device, then users of all ages are comfortable with the device. Even Apple knows that. You can be sure that they have children playing with their future products long before the design is finalized. They never make a big deal out of how small the bezel is on their mobile products either, specially tablets. Remember too that tablets and laptops are not phones. They are entirely different objects when it comes to handling them, unless one is somewhat inclined to use the tip of his/her nails to hold the device. Bezels are a quiet gift when it comes to tablets. They may not look as good as displays without bezels but they actually go a long way toward holding them and working with them.

    As for price, this laptop practically packs in a lot more than an iPhone or a Samsung Note, and yet their prices is far higher than this. And none of them gives you a digitizer for free, which is included in this device practically for free (of course at the cost of giving up on another practical type of keyboard).
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link

    All the better to hold it with.
  • djayjp - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Dumbest idea ever.
  • austinsguitar - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    this was a huge mistake...
  • someonesomewherelse - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    What's with the prices? 2GB with similar cpus, storage capacity, and everything else are around 200 eur / usd / gbp / whatever.....

    Going to 4gb ram more than doubles the price. Unless there's a large bag of cocaine in the box that's insane.

    I mean:

    a) 4gb should be what the cheap ones have anyway, and 2gb for the super cheap ones

    b) for such a price you'd expect 16 gb and a real ssd with 250GB space connected directly to the cpu (idk how it's routed here, but my 200 eur 2gb win10 tablet with 64gb emmc has the storage routed so badly that the already slow emmc becomes even slower)
  • tygrus - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link

    Microsoft have a special low-priced license for these devices that limit the OEM's ability to boost specs. MS limits the CPU, RAM and screen, otherwise it's another $$$ to MS for the full Windows 10 license.
  • fteoath64 - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    You can tell MS to take their Win10 and shove up their (you know where!), as Ubuntu 16.04 works way better on my ThinkPad Twist tablet/hybrid than Win10 does. Why ?. Drivers of Linux is way way better and it goes for both trackpad and touch-screen as well. Why would one pay $$$ for MS junk, I cannot figure out what idiots there are out there....
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link

    Sorry but you're the idiot calling people idiots for using X or y. You are not superior than anyone else and well done for using Linux. A lot of people would find using Linux a major pain in the rear so you stay there and they'll keep on doing what they do.
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link

    Sorry but you're the idiot calling people idiots for using X or y. You are not superior than anyone else and well done for using Linux. A lot of people would find using Linux a major pain in the rear so you stay there and they'll keep on doing what they do.
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 8, 2016 - link

    "Microsoft have a special low-priced license for these devices that limit the OEM's ability to boost specs. "

    PLEASE provide proof of this... . It makes zero sense.
  • drajitshnew - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    nice to see the move back to taller screens. just wish this was present in mainstream laptops as well-- they are far more likely to be used for productivity.
  • mikej101 - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link

    I was very interested in this product. Until I saw it only had 64gb of storage. That is simply ridiculous.
  • ababolilllopatria - Friday, September 9, 2016 - link

    Simply: unusually creative and practical, which turns out to be a difficoult combination these days.

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