Lenovo’s tablets and new smart display have taken a big bite out of the smart home market recently, but it’s still a bit of a surprise for the billion-dollar Chinese technology company to drop not just one innovative product but three here at CES 2019, including a Google Assistant-powered alarm clock that can go head-to-head with the Amazon Echo Spot and two Alexa-powered Smart Tab tablets that turn an ordinary tablet into a mobile voice assistant.
The biggest surprise is definitely the Lenovo Smart Clock with Google Assistant, which will be available in the Spring of 2019 for a retail price of $80. The clock joins a growing family of digital assistant-powered Lenovo products including the Lenovo Smart Display and the Lenovo Smart Home Essentials introduced last year.
As an alarm clock goes, Lenovo’s new device is small but powerful enough to rival an Amazon Echo Spot. A 4-inch screen with a 480 x 800 resolution supports both voice and touch controls and is wrapped in a full fabric soft-touch cover. Users can set sleep routines, dim lights and charge mobile devices with a full-sized USB port.
Its size belies a pretty powerful full-range 6-watt speaker and two passive radiators that can fill up a large bedroom, tuned with Dolby background noise reduction technology for enhanced radio listening. In addition to the ability to play music, the radio, podcasts, or audiobooks, the Lenovo Smart Clock will also hook up with a Chromecast, enabling users to stream shows and music on a television or speakers with voice commands.
Controls are quite customizable. For example, a Lenovo Smart Clock owner could augment a morning alarm with an automatic morning routine, taking a smartphone off silent mode, informing you about today’s weather, triggering reminders for a personal schedule or meetings, and displaying commute information. Thankfully for us night owls, there’s also a mute button, and the Smart Clock doesn’t have a camera on it.
It seems like every smart device being launched at CES this year wants to double as a smart home hub, and the Lenovo Smart Clock is no exception. The company says that the device will connect seamlessly with every smart product in your home, supporting over 10,000 products and 1,000 brands.
Our team from Digital Trends on the ground at CES will be taking the Lenovo Smart Clock for a test run, so look out for our hands-on review in the coming days.
The tablets are a little more familiar, coming in two Android models that include a smart screen that has Amazon’s Alexa built in, as well as a Smart Dock that automatically switches the tablet to Show Mode when the tablet is docked. Each tablet has front and rear cameras as well as 3-watt Dolby audio quality speakers.
There are two models, though not a ton of difference between them. The M10 will retail starting in January for $200 and is slightly over one pound in weight, with versions that include 2GB or 3GB of memory, either 16 or 32 GB of storage, 2 speakers and a 2MP front camera and a 5MP rear camera.
The slightly more robust P10, also retailing in January for $300, is slightly lighter, carries up to 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage, a stronger battery, four speakers, and slightly more powerful cameras in the front and rear.
Finally, the charging dock is a little over a pound and a half in weight, has two 3-watt speakers, 3 microphones and charges each tablet with pogo pin connectors. No word on price for the Lenovo Charging Dock yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
