Skip to Content

What do you buy the Apple fanboy? Visit the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide to find out
Holidash Blog
AOL Tech

Posts with tag lenovo

Lenovo's phone biz soldiers on with P80 flip

by Chris Ziegler, posted Dec 1st 2008 @ 9:23PM


In modern business, brand names frequently have very little -- nay, shockingly little -- to do with the company that's actually behind the product, and Lenovo's totally cool playing that game. Well, not Lenovo proper -- but Lenovo Mobile, which was sold off earlier in the year but continues to use the parent company's name to hawk goods. That's where the P80 comes into play, a new flip that features a 1-inch external OLED combined with a 2.8-inch primary display, microSD expansion to 4GB, 2-megapixel cam, and FM radio. Missing are dual SIM slots (surprisingly common in China) and GPS, but hey, at least it's available in seven tasty colors.

Lenovo's P960 handset packs a fingerprint scanner

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 12th 2008 @ 4:09PM

Samsung's P960 handset has a built-in DVR, while Lenovo's P960 includes a fingerprint scanner. Pointless trivia aside, the latter is also Lenovo's first commercial mobile phone to incorporate fingerprint biometrics. Atrua Technologies has provided a fingerprint scanner that resides on the handset's edge in order to provide additional security for folks (read: cheaters, FBI agents and Segway users) who simply cannot afford to let their contact list be known. Even dodgier, the phone has a VIP recording feature which "automatically records calls from designated numbers" -- something that's sure to provide hours upon hours of merriment. We'd bemoan the fact that pricing information isn't readily available, but we just can't get over that whole automatic recording thing.

China Mobile opens "experience shops" as TD-SCDMA softly launches

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 3rd 2008 @ 4:48AM

We knew good and well China Mobile was all geared up to launch its homegrown 3G standard in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (among other locales), and though China's government hasn't issued 3G licenses yet, TD-SCDMA has finally made its soft launch. In order to garner interest in the service, said carrier has also opened up "experience shops" in the aforementioned cities "to allow the public to experiment with TD-SCDMA handsets and gain confidence with TD-SCDMA's capabilities." During the initial launch, some 60,000 dual-mode TD-SCDMA / GSM handsets and 15,000 data cards will be on sale in these outlets, with most of the units being in the "mid- to high-end range" and costing between $286 and $572 (those are subsidized prices). Here is where we suppose China Mobile holds its breath and hopes for things to take off.

[Via mocoNews]

Lenovo selling off cellphone business you never heard of

by Ryan Block, posted Jan 31st 2008 @ 12:12AM


Believe it or not Lenovo makes cellphones, too -- they just happen to be crappy ones you probably didn't pay much attention to since they were mostly targeted at the Chinese market. Like many before it, the company is getting out of the absurdly competitive handset market by selling its cellphone group to private equity firm Hony Capital (that's Hony, not Sony) for a cool $100m. [Warning: subscription required for read link]

Lenovo's i909 NES gamer makes our hearts beat at 8-bits per operation

by Thomas Ricker, posted Nov 16th 2007 @ 12:09PM


Well, well, would you look at that, Lenono's i909 gaming phone. Oh the specs are ok -- 2 megapixel camera, microSD, and 2.4-inch, 262k, QVGA display on a 15.5-mm candybar -- but it's the on-board NES emulator and snap-on D-pad which has our attention. Sure, we've seen these mashups before, but they never do get old, eh Game King? China only, for now.

Lenovo serves up ThinkPad-inspired phone for China

by Chris Ziegler, posted Aug 9th 2007 @ 4:40PM


We hear nary a peep out of Lenovo's handset division in these parts -- but in China, they do a fairly brisk business, offering the full range from commodity candybars all the way up through Windows Mobile-based powerhouses. You'd think, then, that if the company chose to grace a phone with its treasured ThinkPad branding, it would be one of those higher end pieces, yeah? Apparently not. This here P768 is the first Lenovo we've seen to evoke the storied laptop marque, lacking any sort of smartphone operating system (as far as we can tell) but offering up a metallic shell, 2 megapixel cam, 64MB of storage with microSD expansion, and an FM radio with a thumbstick that looks vaguely like a real ThinkPad's track stick. Grab it in Lenovo's domestic market for 999 yuan, or about $132 -- a far cry from even the cheapest Lenovo lappie, we reckon.

Lenovo unveils new handsets

by Sean Cooper, posted Apr 14th 2007 @ 12:52PM


Lenovo held a press event yesterday where they introduced a slew of new handsets, and to make the event even classier, RoboMan was on hand to dance a couple numbers and just look generally high-tech in his electro suit. While not very well known for phones on this side of the planet, Chinese subscribers -- peep the China Mobile branding on one -- are quite familiar with Lenovo as a handset maker. We can definitely see some blatant copying other brand design inspiration in several of these devices, most notably the Sony Ericsson Z610i and a couple Nokia-esque devices. We don't have specs or names for most of the phones in the gallery, but we're sure you'll appreciate them nonetheless -- just don't get too attached unless you intend to move east. Way east.

Lenovo's lovely ET600 with Windows Mobile 6

by Chris Ziegler, posted Mar 21st 2007 @ 7:57AM


Windows Mobile 6 Professional? Check. Brushed metal (or metal look, at least) body? Check. Dedicated Google button placed prominently front and center? Okay, sure, whatever. HSDPA? Eh, sorry folks, this one's a China-only special; GPRS still reigns supreme in those parts. Lenovo's not really known for its smartphone offerings in the western hemisphere, but on home turf, it's a different story -- this here ET600 is the latest example. Besides the rather comely exterior, you get a tri-band GSM radio sans 850 (no need for it over there), the usual QVGA display, 2 megapixel autofocus cam, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD expansion, and a 200MHz OMAP750 core. Like it? Us too -- bring back a few for us on your next trip to Beijing, wouldya?

[Via Engadget Chinese]

Lenovo shows Windows Mobile 6 offerings

by Chris Ziegler, posted Feb 13th 2007 @ 1:11AM


Lenovo's been pushing phones in its native China for some time -- including some bearing Windows Mobile -- and the company is among Microsoft's launch partners for version six at 3GSM this week. Details are slim for both of these units, but we're guessing the Standard device on the right will be destined for Russia on account of its rather, um... Russia-ish keypad. The Professional handset on the left, though, we're going to call the "Peacemaker." We're not sure exactly how a Google logo found its way prominently onto the frontside of a Microsoft-powered handset, but hey, if all parties involved are cool with that, we're cool with that, too.

Lenovo's colorful i807

by Chris Ziegler, posted Sep 18th 2006 @ 3:18PM

Tracking down full details on Asian handsets can occasionally be akin to pulling teeth, but our counterparts over at Engadget Chinese have done their darndest with Lenovo's new i807. The phone appears to rock a touch screen, and if we had to guess, we'd venture that there's a Linux variant lurking under its hood. You get GPRS data (no EDGE?), Bluetooth with A2DP support, microSD expansion, and full motion H.263 video through its 1.3-megapixel cam. No word on availability, but thanks to its mere dual-mode 900 / 1800MHz radio, exports seem highly unlikely.

Lenovo releases the Superman i750, Phone of Steel

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jun 24th 2006 @ 4:33AM

Much to our surprise, it looks like China will beat out US carriers on bringing a co-branded Superman phone to coincide with the upcoming release of Superman Returns. Lenovo is rolling out a special edition of its i750 candybar to mark the occasion, bundling the phone with a cornucopia of forgettable Superman-themed trinkets. Unfortunately, there's really nothing super about the phone itself -- just your average tri-band GSM piece with 220 x 176 display, 1.3 megapixel camera, and MiniSD slot, though the TV out is a bonus. If you happen to be in mainland China, you can pick up your own piece of Superman history starting the end of June for 1500 Yuan, which rings up just shy of $190 USD.

[Via Mobilewhack]

Cingular 3G option appears on Lenovo's ThinkPad page

by Ryan Block, posted Jun 21st 2006 @ 4:33AM

We're still not really sure what's taken Lenovo so long to make good on pushing out Cingular 3G options in their beloved ThinkPad line (well, yes we are -- could be anything from hardware to network optimization to Verizon exclusivity -- but is simply most likely the lack of HSDPA rollout), but from the looks of things Lenovo's finally about to launch some laptops with Cingular BroadbandConnect. If it's anything like their Verizon option it'll cost you a bit of cash (about $250 for EV-DO, anyway), but all we know for now is that there's at least one page on Lenovo's site advertising a ThinkPad T60 for a cool $1,900 (not counting the $200 mail-in rebate they're serving up). Hey, these laptops aren't for mere amateurs, so consider yourself warned; you didn't exactly expect the baseline model to come in real cheap, now did you?

[Thanks, Dale]

Lenovo's i921 WinMo smartphone

by Evan Blass, posted Apr 9th 2006 @ 4:00PM


Akihabara News has some, um, news about a new Windows Mobile-powered handset from Lenovo that is, while not the first smartphone from the PC manufacturer that we've seen, certainly the most attractive. The i921 is said to rock WM5 (no confirmation on that, apparently, but we seriously doubt that they'd go the WinMo 2003 route), a two megapixel camera, Bluetooth, QVGA touchscreen, and MiniSD slot, and work on some unknown number of GSM frequencies. Not many other deets are known, such as pricing or availability, but if we don't see WiFi or UMTS in the specs, we keep on shopping, no matter how hot the phone looks.

[Via MobileMag]




    Weblogs, Inc. Network

    AOL News

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

    Joystiq
    Download Squad
    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
    BloggingStocks
    Xbox 360 Fanboy
    Autoblog
    Big Download Blog
    Fanhouse NFL Blog