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Lenovo and AT&T join forces on new 5G laptops, starting at just $420

Dua Rashid
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Lenovo is pairing up with AT&T to release a pair of new connected laptops that leveragethe latest in wireless connectivity. The upcoming ThinkPad X13 5G and Lenovo 300e Chromebook feature AT&T’s LTE and 5G technology, respectively. The laptops also allow cross-platform integration so you can share files or send messages across all devices via Chrome OS on the 300e Chromebook or Windows 10 Pro on the ThinkPad X13.

The Lenovo 300e Chromebook LTE will feature 4G LTE on AT&T and sounds like a nice option for students’ computing needs. Available at just $11 a month on an installment plan, it is a student-friendly budget option.

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The “budget” feel applies to some of the specs as well, including the screen, which is just an 11.6-inch HD touch display. The display does have Corning Gorilla Glass coating and promises durability. The Chromebook’s keyboard is spill-resistant also, which parents and teachers will appreciate.

Image of Lenovo 300e
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The 300e features a convertible design so you can use it in both tablet and laptop mode. Its body is apparently lightweight and it should be easy to carry around. Lenovo’s upcoming Chromebook features a 47 wattt-hour battery, and the company promises that a charge will last long enough for you to go from home to school and back without worrying. It has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, so you can expect some limitations in terms of usage.

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The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 features AT&T 5G technology and is advertised as a high-powered, 11th-gen Intel processor laptop packed into a lightweight chassis. It features a 57.4Wh battery, along with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD that is apparently expansive enough to fit your documents, movies, music, and more. The X13 boasts a 13.3-inch display and weighs 2.96 pounds.

Image of Lenovo X3
Image used with permission by copyright holder

According to Jenifer Robertson, executive vice president of AT&T Mobility, “cellular connectivity [is] predicted to come in 25% of all laptops in the next three years.” Keeping this in mind, Lenovo’s upcoming laptops are aiming to deliver advanced options ahead of time.

Pre-orders for the ThinkPad X13 5G will begin on August 27, and it will be available to purchase online starting September 17. Pre-orders for the 300e Chromebook LTE will begin September 10 and it will be available for purchase online and in selected stores starting September 28. The 300e has a starting price of $420 and is available in gray, while you can get the X13 for $1,500 in black.

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Dua Rashid
Dua Rashid
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dua is a media studies graduate student at The New School. She has been hooked on technology since she was a kid and used to…
How 5G is changing journalism
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There's little doubt that 5G is starting to touch every area of our lives -- from online classrooms to 5G-powered bots supplying medication to remote citizens. It’s no surprise then that 5G is also changing the way our newsrooms work. 
Once widely available, 5G tools and the faster speeds they deliver will help journalists in at least three ways, professor John Pavlik of Rutgers University. First, he says, “5G can enable journalists working in the field to report more effectively from their digital devices, particularly with regard to high-bandwidth news gathering, such as photogrammetry, and other immersive applications for augmented reality and virtual reality (e.g., volumetric video capture), as well as high-resolution video from mobile devices.”
Second, 5G can enable news organizations to operate effectively without relying on a central, physical newsroom by supporting high-speed internet file sharing. Finally, 5G can help improve newsrooms by supporting better engagement with the public.
The best example of how 5G has made journalism more effective can be seen with the latest collaboration between The New York Times and Verizon. In 2019, the two companies came together to build a 5G Journalism Lab. Tools born out of this collaboration include environmental photogrammetry, Beam, and Eclipse.
Environmental photogrammetry
“Environmental photogrammetry involves taking thousands of still photographs and stitching them together as one large 3D model, giving readers the ability to immersively navigate the space as if they were actually there,” explains Sebastian Tomich, senior vice president and global head of advertising and marketing solutions for The New York Times.
This technology was first used in a 2020 story that toured the Los Angeles mansion where gamer conglomerate FaZe Clan lived and worked. “An article that employs environmental photogrammetry uses as much data as streaming an hourlong television show,” Marc Lavallee, head of research and development for the Times, said in a press release. “Making this kind of reading experience seamless for our readers requires cutting-edge networks like 5G.”
Beam and Eclipse 

Talking about their first proprietary photography app, Beam, Tomich said it allows Times journalists working in the field to capture and automatically upload high-resolution images to the newsroom with nothing but their smartphone and camera. 
Building upon the advances of Beam, the Eclipse app leverages Verizon 5G to expand video journalism. Eclipse can use 5G to transmit professional video files that meet The Times’s quality standards at a speed that competes with uploads of mobile phone videos, which have file sizes roughly 14 times smaller, Tomich said. It allows video journalists to get material into their editors’ hands in close to real time, rather than hours later.
“This "always on" connection facilitated by Beam and Eclipse enables deeper coordination between the newsroom and photo and video journalists in the field,” he said. “With the ability to review footage in near real time, editors can now request additional photos or videos while the journalist is still on the scene.”
Real-life applications
These tools developed by the 5G lab aren’t just ideas inside four walls. The team has already started implementing them to improve the speed and quality of journalism. 
For instance, when the team went to cover the 2020 Oscars red carpet arrivals, Verizon set up a 5G network at the event. Using Beam, a Times photographer roamed the red carpet freely, without interruption or regard for file transfer limits. “He ended up sending eight times more photos than the previous year’s photographer, with an average upload time of 2.1 seconds,” Tomich said. “With Beam, shooting IS filing.”
However, creating powerful tools isn’t always enough for effective real-world practices. Factors like awareness, availability, and access to resources play a huge role in shaping journalism. As newsrooms and 5G providers are waking up to the transformational power of 5G-powered, Pavlik suggests three ideas to better capitalize on the 5G tools available on the market.
He advises newsrooms to: 

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Lenovo ThinkPad X13s hands-on review: ARM-powered ThinkPad
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Lenovo's best laptops have always had Intel or AMD inside, but in a first, there's now a new ThinkPad powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform.

More specifically, it is the ThinkPad X13s, an ARM-powered device that's unlike a regular ThinkPad in more ways than one. With promising always-on, always-connected performance and a fantastic sustainable design, this Lenovo laptop feels different from past Windows on ARM devices, and after trying one ahead of Mobile World Congress, it dares to take on Apple's M1 MacBooks in the business realm.

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One of them is a 5G home router and the other two are a 4G home station and a mobile Wi-Fi device. Be warned, their names are a mouthful; The Linkhub 5G CPE HH515 is TCL's newest 5G router, while the two 4G routers are the Linkhub LTE CAT6 Home Station HH63 and the Linkzone LTE CAT6 Mobile Wi-Fi MW63.

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