Lenovo’s IdeaPad U110 Barely Tips Scales

The latest addition to the new IdeaPad family floats along at 2.5 pounds, and includes a frameless LCD screen, textured metal case, and webcam with face recognition.

Lenovo rounded out its new IdeaPad family of consumer notebooks on Tuesday with an 11-inch kid sister to join its larger 15.4-inch and 17-inch offerings. The tiny IdeaPad U110 will serve as the most mobile computer in the line, and also the priciest.

Making weight a priority, Lenovo has kept the U110 to less than 2.5 pounds with the standard four-cell battery. To make the most of such a tiny 11-inch form factor, the notebook’s screen sports a frameless design, as well as a viewing angle Lenovo claims is “infinite-like.” The U110’s textured metal lid can be finished in either black or red.

Performance specs include a choice of Intel Centrino processors, a 120GB hard drive, and memory up to 3GB. As you might expect from a 2.5-pound notebook, there’s no optical drive, but Lenovo did manage to include a fair number of other extras, including standard Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth, and a webcam that uses Veriface Face Recognition to substitute for a password.

The IdeaPad U110 will start at $1,899 when it goes on sale in mid-May. Like Lenovo’s other IdeaPads, it will be available at retailers including Micro Center, Newegg, and Tiger Direct, but also a batch of newly announced distributors, including B&H, CompUSA, J&R and RCS Experience.